Faithful Brothers & Sisters

The first time will be on January 19, when my friend Brian Seagraves will be coming to bring a message for you largely related to the sanctity of human life. Brian is an apologist and a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, but most of all he is our dear friend and faithful brother in Christ.

The other three Sundays are what I would call related digressions. In simplest terms we are going to chase a few rabbits.

As I was laying out the preaching calendar there were some concepts that are really important to the study of Colossians that deserve further treatment than one Sunday will allow.

We’ll talk about prayer and evangelism as it relates to Paul’s struggle for the church in Colossae

We’ll talk about Paul’s idea of what it means to be united with Christ and the way it relates to how we live our lives here and now.

And Brother Jim will be bringing a message at the end of April, Lord willing, about the mortification (or the killing) of sin and how it relates to the putting off of the old self that Paul describes in Colossians 3.

The other 18 Sundays will all be Colossians...

Which prompts me to answer an important question: WHY AM I PREACHING VERSE BY VERSE?

For some of you, this isn’t a question that comes to your mind, because you are so used to sitting under good expository preaching that you are familiar with the benefits of doing something like preaching through the entire book of Colossians. But for others of you, this style may be a little new, and I simply want to share why I am convinced this method of preaching is the most beneficial for the church.

When the famous reformer, Martin Luther, was asked to reflect on his great conflict with the Pope of the Roman Catholic church over the wicked practice of indulgences, he replied “I opposed indulgences and all papists, but never by force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word: otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip of Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it. I did nothing: the Word did it all.”

I simply taught, preached and wrote GOD’s Word - the WORD did it all.

What underlies my desire to preach the whole counsel of God’s Word is my firm conviction that it is the WORD of GOD and the Holy Spirit that changes lives. I am a messenger, a proclaimer, a voice, but the substance of my message will be fruitless and ineffective if it is not the very word of God.

PREACH THE WORD! Paul told Timothy. He also told him that

2 Timothy 3:16–17 ESV

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

ALL - every little bit of Scripture is profitable. And by way of reminder, that word Scripture would have meant primarily the Old Testament to Timothy. Yes, the Old Testament is profitable. Which is why our time in Colossians is really just a temporary digression from where we’ve been in Exodus. We have unfinished work there, and I believe, Lord willing, that I’ll be picking up right where we left off in Exodus this Fall.

So the first reason I preach verse by verse is because I believe it is the Word that gives life.

But you might object: you could do that by preaching God’s word every week but just not always in order. Do some here one week, and some there the next week...

Be careful…There are dangers there. I think there is a temptation, more than we might ever admit to, as preachers to have something to say that needs a text to support it. In other words, people get hobby horses, or favorite themes, or things they like to rail against and they go to the Bible looking for a text to support their message, not to look for God’s message to his church.

Going verse by verse allows us to be well-rounded in our approach to Scripture, getting to hard and difficult doctrines, and addressing sometimes sensitive and touchy subjects in a rhythm that makes sense. When we come to a difficult passage, or a hard teaching, or a politically incorrect portion of Scripture, it doesn’t feel like I’m on a personal vendetta - I am simply trying to follow the flow and thought of the author of the book we are studying.

So the second and third reasons I preach verse by verse is because it keeps us from imbalance and helps us understand the author’s intent.

The pastor wrote about his practice of preaching verse by verse. He said:

1) If I am obligated to teach the whole counsel of God, I must take it the way it comes, one book at a time from beginning to end.

2) Also, the only effective way of seeing the significance of a passage is in its context. Going through an entire book sets the passage in its context on its widest, deepest, and richest level.

3) One other thought: neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament was written as a collection of verses to be thrown into the air and allowed to fall back wherever they might. Rather, each book has a reasonable, logical, inspired flow of thought going from point A to point Z, with all stops in between. Each was designed by the Holy Spirit so that you have the Holy Spirit communicating something powerfully and clearly in the whole letter: you dare not miss a single part!

Then he gives this illustration which I think is gold:

[QUOTE] If I received five letters in the mail one day, it would make no sense to read a sentence or two out of one, skip two, read a few sentences out of another, and go to the next one and read a few out of that, and on and on. If I really want to comprehend the letter—what is going on, the tone, the spirit, the attitude, and the purpose—I must start from the beginning and go to the end of each one. If that is true of personal correspondence, I believe it is even more important when interpreting divine revelation. [END QUOTE]

I could go on with more reasons why going verse by verse is beneficial, but I think the point is well made that we will all be the beneficiaries of having more clearly understood Scripture by taking it in context and in a way that keeps us balanced and receiving the fullest and best understanding of what God wants to say, and not what I want to say.

I believe the last thing you should look for in a preacher is CREATIVITY. We don’t need something new, we don’t need any additions, and we don’t need man-made traditions. We need Christ.

And that sentence is the perfect transition into the book of Colossians. We don’t need something new. We don’t need any additions, and we don’t need man-made traditions. We need Christ.

So would you pray with me even now that in every endeavor - through every message and in every way possible we would see Christ in Colossians?

Father, all around St. Mary’s county, there are religious people. Sadly, their religion teaches them to rely on man-made traditions or extra-biblical requirements for any possibility of hope. And then, Lord, there are vain philosophies that put forward a false sense of hope with seemingly plausible arguments. But we know that there is NO philosophy or religion or human tradition that will secure our hope or foster our faithful obedience to you. Only the grace of God in the gift of Jesus Christ can bring about our full and final peace. So we pray that we would begin as a church, collectively, to comprehend the measure of grace you have poured out on us in Jesus. That we would honor him as the supreme authority of this local manifestation of the body of Christ. That he would be our head. That we would grow into him. That we would comprehend our union with him in his death. That we would allow his word to dwell richly in us. That we would let his peace rule our hearts and minds. And that we his mystery - namely that Christ now dwells within both Jewish and Gentile believers would propel us toward prayer, mission and evangelism. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

So with God’s help, we now endeavor to study this book together. And before we read the first couple of verses from it, I want to give you some introductory information that will help us understand the context and purpose for this letter.

The background of the letter to the church at Colossae really begins in Acts 19.

Paul is on his third missionary journey and he arrives at Ephesus around 52-53 AD.

When he arrived, he found some disciples in Ephesus who only knew of John’s baptism, so he baptized them, laid his hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. And then he kept speaking boldly and reasoning and persuading people in the synagogue there about the kingdom of God.

Acts 19:9–10 ESV

9 But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. 10 This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

Verse 10 there is the key to understanding where the church at Colossae got its origins. During this two year period, Ephesus became a launching pad for Paul to send his ministry partners into all of Asia. One of those men was named Epaphras.

Ephaphras had been Paul’s personal representative in the evangelization of the Lycus Valley region, which included Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis.

We know this because Paul says they learned the gospel from him.

Colossians 1:7 CSB

7 You learned this from Epaphras, our dearly loved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf,

And it would even seem as though Paul had not actually met the church in Colossae:

Colossians 2:1 CSB

1 For I want you to know how greatly I am struggling for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person.

So what was it like for Epaphras? What did he find in that region?

Colossae was a rather insignificant city in Roman times, eclipsed by its neighbor Laodicea, ten miles to the west, and Hierapolis, twelve miles to the northwest. Most of the people would have made their living by raising sheep, farming crops, or wool-dyeing. The wool was gathered from sheep which grazed on the slopes of the Lycus valley, and dyed a dark red color that was generally known as “Colossian.” So next time Crayola has one of those color naming contests, I think we should all petition that some deep red be named Colossian Red...

Indeed, wool was the commercial industry in Colossae, but the town’s commercial and social significance was on the wane when Paul wrote. One writer even called the church there the “Least important church to which any epistle Paul wrote was addressed…” But was does that say to us? That the Apostle would take the time to write to this small church that was insignificant in the eyes of the world? Practically speaking, I think it should remind us of the importance of our cooperation with the BCMD and the Potomac Baptist Association. In God’s eyes there is no such thing as an insignificant body of believers. And as we’ll see in just a moment, Paul will call them faithful brothers and sisters. No mega-church here. No making a name for themselves. This area had no claim to fame. But they were important in God’s eyes and for the Apostle.

One other note that comes into play. Although the majority of the region was Gentile, There was a significant Jewish population in the cities of the Lycus valley, perhaps as many as 7,500. This estimate is based on the amount of money confiscated for the temple tax by a Lucius Peducaeus in Laodicea in 62 BC according to historical records.

This Jewish population brings us to the occasion or reason WHY the letter was written.

Paul’s aim in writing was to provide the Christian antidote to error in doctrine and practice. That error undoubtedly has a flavor of Jewishness to it. Although the specific error in the church in Colossae has been the subject of much debate over the past century or so. When you study commentaries, you might find the term “Colossian Heresy.” This false doctrine has a number of scholars guessing what specifically Paul was addressing. There are a host of big scholarly names that try and pinpoint what was being taught based on some of the catch-phrases of this teaching found in the book of Colossians.

WHATEVER the error was (it most likely did not have a name) - it probably involved some kind of combination of distorted OT Mystical Jewish notions (about angels and such) together with pagan ideas in the false teaching at Colossae. It had religious jargon with philosophical and elements of human tradition that made Epaphras say - HELP PAUL! HELP ME OUT HERE - these Colossians are in danger, and we need an authoritative WORD.

So Epaphras probably left Archippus in charge of the work at Colossae and then he went to visit Paul in prison.

I say Epaphras probably left Archippus in charge based on Paul’s words to Archippus in Col. 4

Colossians 4:17 CSB

17 And tell Archippus, “Pay attention to the ministry you have received in the Lord, so that you can accomplish it.”

and then in Philemon 2 he calls Archippus a fellows soldier...

Philemon 2 CSB

2 to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church that meets in your home.

So Epaphras is on his way to visit Paul in prison. Which leads us nicely into a discussion of the provenance, authorship and date of the letter.

Provenance means the place from which a writing originated.

As you study commentaries, you will often find a lengthy discussion about who the author of certain Biblical books are. If you are reading good solid evangelical commentaries, these are not usually coming from a position of doubt of the traditional views, but rather of good scholarship that is attempting to address relatively modern arguments that have been made to dispute the authorship of Scripture.

For most of you, you’re like me, you read verse 1 and you’re good:

Colossians 1:1 CSB

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will, and Timothy our brother:

Boom. It’s Paul - and hey Timothy’s right there beside him. Is he his amanuensis or secretary? Perhaps, but this is designed to be understood as a letter written with Paul’s complete apostolic authority and oversight.

But interestingly, scholars (traditional and modern) do not seem to dispute that Paul wrote the book of Philemon. It is what scholars call an “undisputed book.”

So on the basis of the close connection between Colossians and Philemon alone, I believe that the argument is very strong for Pauline authorship. And he is apparently writing from prison. So provenance so far is merely - “Paul wrote from jail.”

Look at

Colossians 4:2–3 ESV

2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. 3 At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—

And apparently when Epaphras gives him word about the Colossian believers he is either visiting or maybe even volunteers to stay in jail with Paul too. Because at the end of Philemon he says

Philemon 23 CSB

23 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings, and so do

So was Epaphras in jail or just visiting? I’m sure if he was in jail he’d wish he had that orange card!

But in either case Epaphras was sitting in prison with Paul giving a report of all the false doctrine that had infiltrated the Colossian church. It was perhaps at that time that he also introduced Paul to Onesimus - a runaway slave from guess where.... COLOSSAE!

Now, here’s where the details get a little hard to determine. There are three theories of where Paul was imprisoned when he wrote Colossians and Philemon (and btw probably Ephesians too).

Some relatively newer theories say Colossians was written during Paul’s imprisonment in Caesarea by the sea.

Others say Ephesus was where Paul was imprisoned.

The traditional view is Rome during his first imprisonment there.

Now, due to the fact that Onesimus had run away from Colossae, Ephesus is a logical fit - because it is the closest major metropolis where he could slip into the city life and be relatively undetected as a runaway slave. And it is for that same reason that many people remove Caesarea by the Sea as an option. One, it wasn’t a big enough city, and two - it was so far away.

But Rome is the most traditional view of where Paul was imprisoned in spite of its distance from Colossae.

For one, Paul was relatively free to move about in his imprisonment in Rome, and that is reflected in the letters to Colossians, Ephesians and Philemon when Paul asks for prayer to be able to share boldly. He saw visitors often and had that freedom.

Secondly, the list of prisoners is one of the keys to understanding where Paul was. Aristarchus is listed as a fellow prisoner in

Colossians 4:10 ESV

10 Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you, and Mark the cousin of Barnabas (concerning whom you have received instructions—if he comes to you, welcome him),

and so is Luke

Colossians 4:14 ESV

14 Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas.

These two in particular were both with Paul in Rome. According to the “we” passages in Acts (where Dr. Luke writes in the first person plural to include himself in some of Paul’s journeys), Luke was with Paul in Rome but not in Ephesus. So the list of prisoners leans toward Rome as the provenance for the letter - which also helps us with a date.

It is likely that it was written between 60 and late 61 AD.

And that leads us, finally, to the delivery method… Enter Tychicus.

Tychicus was the one responsible for hand delivering the letter to the Ephesians and the Colossians, and for bringing Onesimus to Philemon with that letter as well.

Ephesians 6:21–22 CSB

21 Tychicus, our dearly loved brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me so that you may be informed. 22 I am sending him to you for this very reason, to let you know how we are and to encourage your hearts.

Colossians 4:7–8 CSB

7 Tychicus, our dearly loved brother, faithful minister, and fellow servant in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me. 8 I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know how we are and so that he may encourage your hearts.

And so, sometime maybe even January of 61 AD, 1,959 years ago Tychicus arrives in the Lycus Valley with a letter to the church at Colossae. And I invite you to stand as we read just the first two verses of it this morning.

Colossians 1:1–2 CSB

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

You may be seated.

Now, I’ve tried my best to tell the story and the context of this letter in a way that is interesting and engaging. But please, don’t let the background information go in one ear and out the other, because remember, it is in that context, and that setting - with all we learned about the false doctrine and the challenges in the city and the philosophical and Jewish-mystic influences that will all come into play as we study this letter. So if you need to go back and re-listen, or if your friend missed today - don’t let them come and jump in mid-stream without sending them a link to this introductory sermon - because it will help them.

But more than simply introductory material, today we need to hear what the Lord is saying to US through these simple verses. And briefly, I want to share with you three things this text teaches us about our relationship to God and one another.

1) Faithful brothers and sisters are family in Christ.

The saints, or Christian believers in Colossae were called faithful brothers and sisters. But their family relationship is because they are all in Christ. This is perhaps why Paul leaves off his traditional ending to the greeting. In more letters than not, he says “grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. But this letter emphasize the church as a family from the start.

Timothy is called a brother.

The church in Christ is called brothers and sisters.

And God is their father.

So LBC, let’s remember - let’s learn and apply from this text today that when we put our faith in Jesus we gain a family. Jesus called our faith family one that has stronger bonds than even earthly family does.

Matthew 10:37 ESV

37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Mark 10:29–30 ESV

29 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

So if you’re away from family, or here in St. Mary’s County because your work brought you here - we want you to know that if Jesus is your Savior, and God is your father - you are our brother. You are our sister. We love you, and we need you.

2) Faithful brothers and sisters study God’s Word together.

In verse one of Colossians, Paul was called as an apostle through “the will of God.” This call happened to Paul when the resurrected Christ appeared to him on the Damascus road and commissioned him, so Paul’s apostleship is grounded in the authoritative call of the resurrected Christ.

Paul clearly intends the word APOSTLE to have its full “official” sense: a person called by Christ himself to represent Christ and proclaim Christ and thereby serve as the “foundation” of the new people of God. He said in Ephesians

Ephesians 2:19–20 ESV

19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,

The church… The family of God was built on the foundation of apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone. IN other words, Jesus is the cornerstone that sets the whole building in right order, but the foundation that was laid was laid by apostles and prophets.

This is why when we speak of the authority of Scripture we do not say that the church created the Bible. The canon as it came to be understood was not a creation of 27 books of the New Testament, but a recognition of what was truly Scripture. It met the measuring credentials of Scripture because each book was either written by an apostle or a close companion of an Apostle and under his authority/approval.

Peter writes this in his second letter

2 Peter 3:15–16 ESV

15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Peter equates Paul’s letter with Scripture (probably having Old Testament Scripture in view). In other words, EARLY EARLY on, the apostles recognized that the Holy Spirit was doing an amazing thing - carrying men along who were eyewitnesses to Jesus himself to bring about an authoritative message from God for the church. (See 2 Pet. 1:16-21 for further study).

So when Paul writes Colossians as an apostle by the will of God - we as faithful brothers and sisters gather around it to study it as the very word of God for us.

Finally,

3) Faithful brothers and sisters rely on God’s grace and peace.

Paul took a common greeting for the Romans “xairein” and turned it into xaris - GRACE.

G.K. Beale says “Paul injects a theology of grace into what was typically a default way of saying “hello.””

God’s grace will be a major theme of this letter - the grace of the gift of Jesus.

The only way one can ever have grace and peace is if one is “in Christ Jesus.” How can people enter into such a relationship? Col. 2:6–7 says that it is by “receiving Christ Jesus” by “faith”.

Colossians 2:6–7 ESV

6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

This “grace and peace” is to enable believers to live set-apart lives (i.e., to be “saints,” “holy ones”) and be “faithful” brothers and sisters as they live “in Colossae.”

What about in Leonardtown?

Newsflash- - brothers and sisters argue. Brothers and sisters quarrel. Brothers and sisters fight. But tapping into the abundance of God’s grace we can find grace to love one another.

In fact, as often as you greet a brother or sister... you should remember the grace of God.

And the richness of the Jewish greeting “peace” should not be lost sight of.

It implies not simply lack of war but all that makes for wellbeing and prosperity in the absence of war, and not simply individual or inner peace, but also the wholeness of harmonious relationships.

My prayer for LBC is that as we study Colossians together we would realize our relationship to one another is constituted in Christ, established on the foundation of God’s Word and perpetually sustained by God’s Grace and Peace.

Christ provides all of that - forget the religious syncretism and philosophy and human traditions - let’s live the life of liberty to love one another because of the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

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