Sermon Tone Analysis
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COLOSSIANS 1:1-14
The Supremacy of Christ
Sunshine Beach & Tewan n 19-6-22
How do you pray?
God, please help my sick friend.
God, please give me a good test result when I visit the doctor.
God, please x my family.
God, please get rid of my wrinkles.
God, please don't let the stock market fall any further.
You've all heard the li le child's prayer haven’t you?
God bless Mummy, God bless Daddy,
God bless my baby brother and I guess my annoying sister,
God bless our dog Fido,
and God, please look a er yourself, or else we're all sunk!
There are many ways people pray.
What do you think about the way the Apostle Paul prays in today's reading from Colossians?
What an amazing passage!
What an amazing prayer!
Paul introduces his prayer in v3, “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love
you have for all God’s people...”
And then there is a second round of prayer beginning in v9 “For this reason, since the day we
heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you.
We con nually ask God to ll you
with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit
gives…”
What a truly inspired prayer it is!
What a truly inspired epistle the whole of Colossians is!
Today we commence a new series in this much loved li le book of Colossians.
The tle is
“Supreme - the Christ of Colossians”.
It's all about the supremacy of Christ in every way.
Colossae is a town in Turkey inland from Ephesus on the west coast.
Paul hadn't visited the
town when he wrote this le er so he didn't know the people personally.
It doesn't stop him
wri ng in a very personal way however.
Epaphras is the man who most likely planted the
church in Colossae.
There are a couple of references to him in the epistle and one in today's
reading you may have no ced.
Paul has learned about the situa on in the Colossian’ church
through his friendship with Epaphras.
You'll see that in verses 7 and 8.
He can pray with such
con dence about the Colossians because of all that Epaphras has told him.
So how do your prayers compare with the Apostle Paul?
What is it that produces prayers like
we see here in Colossians 1?
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I think you’ll nd the answer in the passage – what makes the di erence is the gospel.
The Apostle says in the last part of verse 5 that they have heard the true message of the
gospel and in verse six that this gospel is bearing fruit in them as well as the rest of the
world.
It is the gospel which makes a di erence in the way we pray and of course in every
area of our lives.
It is important therefore to have clarity about the gospel.
Paul writes this le er in order to give the Colossians clarity.
There were people in uencing
the Colossians with a false gospel that was leading them astray.
Scholars call it the
‘Colossian’ heresy’ and Paul deals with it especially in Chapter 2. We could sum it up in what
he writes in Chapter 2 verse 8 - it is teaching which depends on human tradi on and the
basic principles (elemental spiritual forces) of this world rather than on Christ.
There will be
more on that later in the series.
Perhaps we could simply sum it up as anything that does not
exalt Christ.
In our own day what is the human tradi on and the basic principles of the world which does
not exalt Christ?
It is probably the age old heresy of people thinking they can work their way
into acceptance with God through their good works.
I'm not sure how many mes I've heard
it said, “As long as I try and do my best, surely God will accept me in the end.”
It sounds very
sincere and humble but in actual fact does not honour God because it doesn’t accept God’s
way of salva on through Jesus.
It doesn't recognise the cross and what it cost Jesus to die
for our sins.
It is very human centred thinking rather than being God centred.
The Apostle Paul in Chapter 1 verse 5 talks about ‘the true message of the gospel’.
That's our
Pew Bible NIV version.
An earlier NIV edi on and many others say, ‘the word of truth, the
gospel.’
So we can think of this gospel as ‘the word of truth’; or as our Pew Bible puts it ‘the
true message of the gospel.’
So what is this gospel which is ‘the word of truth’ or ‘the true message’?
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