[Transcript represents full sermon's text]

       Turning in our New Testaments today, we come to Paul’s Letter to the Church of Colossae. The book has come to be known as ‘Colossians.’ While this letter may have been sent from Paul as a response to the threat of false beliefs threatening the brand new church, really, it is an encouragement and overview of what is to be expected from the church and believers in general. Paul—the minister to the Gentiles (and likely eventual minister to the Jews as well)—is the one who has the authority from God to deliver such a message. Along with him is Timothy, who is the minister most famous as the recipient of Paul’s letters to him, which appear a few books over in our New Testaments.

       Thus, Paul was likely behind bars in Italy at the writing of this epistle here. Rome to be specific. It seems likely that this traditional view in the church throughout the ages is the correct view. This being the case, it is also ascertained that Paul hadn’t visited the city of Colossae before. This can to determined from verse 1 of chapter 2. And the audience to which Paul was writing may have been quite large. At the site of the city in present day, the walls are still there, as well as a theater, and the theater suggests seating of about 25,000 to 30,000 people. Thus, in understanding Colossae’s size, we understand that the church may have been large, but to what degree, it really is not known.

       In coming to verse 1 of chapter 1, we read the following: “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.”

       For those who are familiar to the setup of things after the Lord Jesus Christ’s accession into Heaven, we know that God basically chose two men to be the primary heads of the work he sought to accomplish. Those two people are the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul. Now, Peter was with Jesus during his earthly ministry, all the way from the beginning and all the way through the end. He was there for the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit breathed tongues of fire on him and the other Apostles. He is the Apostle that is called to bring the Gospel to the Jewish people, God’s original chosen people from the Old Testament times. On the other hand, Paul here, he was not with Jesus during his time here on earth. As a matter of fact, Paul would refer to himself as “one untimely born” (see 1 Corinthians 15:8, ESV). That is, he came after the original eleven and then twelve Apostles, or disciples of Jesus.

       The will of God for Paul then was to be the apostle to the Gentiles. This is interesting when we come to read his writings because we find that he had a great heart for the Jewish people. They were his brothers and sisters in the faith, as he specifically talks about in Romans chapters 9 through 11. In one view it has been noted, and this as a result from Peter’s friendliness with the Jews who sought to keep Jewish tradition alongside Christianity (remember, Paul rebuked Peter for his actions in Galatians chapter 2), it is supposed that Paul eventually became the primary apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ for both groups, the Jews and the Gentiles. And this would be due to Peter’s failure in doing the work God had set aside for him to do. This would also explain why, when reading the Book of Acts of the Apostles, we see Peter is fazed out about halfway through the book, and Paul afterward becomes the primary focus in the historical account. It would seem that due to Peter’s worldly attraction in keeping his fellow Jews happy, he was lead astray, and under these circumstances God had to adjust his plans and use Paul to reach the Jewish population.

       Nevertheless, going back to verse 1 of Colossians chapter 1, we read, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother” (1, ESV).

       The text, at this point, brings Timothy into the picture. It should not be supposed that Timothy was in prison with Paul, but rather that Timothy continued to work alongside Paul even in Paul’s unpleasant and unfortunate circumstances. Indeed, Timothy was faithful to the Gospel message, and wasn’t deterred by what had happened to Paul. We see Paul’s true thoughts on Timothy if we read a portion of Philippians chapter 2. Paul says, “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel” (Philippians 2:19-22, ESV). It was also Timothy to whom Paul chose to write his final letter to, right before he was executed for the faith. That’s how highly Paul thought of Timothy.

       Colossians 1:2 states, “To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.”

       This is the familiar greeting we see from the Apostle Paul in all of his letters, namely, that of the use of “Grace” and “Peace.” So, this grace and peace is something that is granted to those of the body of Christ. It is interesting that Paul picks these two things. One would wonder why he didn’t pick love, for instance, as a primary thing to be received from God. Rather, his calling card is grace and peace. Grace makes sense as it is something that believers always need from God, who, appropriately, is noted as “Father.” Since nobody can be perfect at all times with anything, grace is always needed. It is what completes our characters where they are lacking. If we recall, Jesus told Paul on one occasion “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (see 2 Corinthians 12:9, ESV). This isn’t to say that God wants us to be weak, as Christians, but rather it is the natural state of all of us in our fallen, sin-affected world. Again, it is impossible to be perfect currently in our lives. At times we can conclude, God allows weakness to abound in us instead of victory as really, it is abounding anyway.

       Peace, then, peace is twofold. On the one hand, peace is internal. It is a decision that everyone has to make within their minds. Really, in reality, anyone at anytime can be “at peace” as it is said. It is a decision one makes inside the mind, and this comes best from the use of surrender, from not resisting what the mind is presenting but rather surrendering to it and letting it pass. Peter would refer to this as, “casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (see 1 Peter 5:7, ESV). This leads us to external circumstances, which, experientially, are not always peaceful. This is why control of the mind is necessary. At times in our lives, we have ‘external’ peaceful periods. At other times, things are perceived as not so peaceful. It is during these not so peaceful times that we usually pray, and sometimes God makes things peaceful again externally and sometimes it takes awhile. But, the beautiful thing it seems that Paul wants us to understand is that while we need grace daily (which is a thing which cannot be seen), so it is that we need peace daily (also a thing that cannot be seen when it is the indwelling state of the mind that we are talking about). Paul certainly did not have ‘peaceful’ external circumstances when he was writing this letter, yet he told everyone to receive God’s peace. So, peace, then, can always be had regardless of one’s external circumstances.

       Continuing in verse 3: “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven” (v. 3-5, ESV).

       Notice next, again, that the prisoner Paul had a ‘thankful attitude.’ This is important because Paul models for us, despite his unpleasant circumstances, that he was thankful. The use of thankfulness, saturating the mind of things that one can be thankful for, can also lift one’s spirit, lift one out of the mire of mud. A good method seems to be to create a list, a list in which everything is written out that is positive. The mind has a tendency to only want to focus on the negative. And it’s not just that, but then the mind magnifies the negative it is focusing on it makes it out of proportion with the rest of reality. The mind uses the internal sin-nature to accomplish this by incorrectly focusing in on the negative and conveniently disregarding that which is positive. This sets up an artificial picture of reality. (It should be noted that mind can get so off-track that it eventually seeks to destroy itself—but we don’t want to get too off track here).

       So, the thankfulness from Paul is focused on the “faith” and the “love” of the Colossian believers. There’s the love that seemed to be missing from the opening. Anyway, Paul is happy because he had heard that the believers in Colossae are full of faith in Christ Jesus. That is, the believe the message that is his main focus—the message of the truth of reality. The Colossians didn’t believe in an unknown god, as Paul found that people in Athens, Greece, did, but they believed in the God of the Universe (see Acts 17:22, 23). They believed the message that they could be freed from their sins, things they did in their lives that didn’t bring them true fulfilling life. They had believed in Christ’s atonement through the cross and his resurrection from the dead.

       This faith then in Christ Jesus was coupled with their love for each other. Really, this love appears to be twofold. For one, it is the love they have toward each other as a church body locally. That’s the beautiful thing. When Christians come to accept the message of the Gospel, it is like they are infused with a commonness that brings forth an automatic love for one another. It’s almost as if there is an underlying trust that comes when one meets a new believer and can sense that that person is indeed genuine. It’s not that it isn’t chosen at times; it certainly has to be. But it’s also true, to note a second point, that the Colossians also had love for other churches in their area, like the believers in Laodicea. Paul uses the word “all” here… “the love that you have for all the saints.” So, it just isn’t local love that is had, but love for the surrounding churches. Note there could have been divisions, judgments, disagreements, and the such, but the Colossians didn’t chose that approach. Rather, they loved their fellow brothers and sisters, not focusing on those things where their might be differences.

       And why the faith and love? What was behind those things? Paul said these were “because of the hope laid up for you in heaven” (ESV). See, it is fundamental that what we believe now is tied to what will be in the future, namely, the future after this life is over. In other words, we aren’t just living for now. We are living for the future. Those whom we ‘love’ now, most of those will be with us in the future. Indeed, they will be known for the whole eternal state. That makes love seem more important, doesn’t it? Who wants to not love right now, only to arrive in Heaven and see that person and say, “I’m sorry, but I should have loved you in the past.” That doesn’t seem right. We love now because these are the people we will be with in the future. Sure, we could love because of rewards, to gain rewards. That might be a lesser motivation at least at times. It doesn’t seem that’s what Paul’s referring to, however. The hope laid up for us in Heaven is found first in God the Father, then in Jesus Christ, and then in the great truths which surround them. These truths are worth much more than possessions. It is our very beingness that will be in Heaven, and this with God and others.

       But Paul gets more specific, he says of this hope: “Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 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” (Colossians 1:5-6, ESV).

       There it is. He’s talking about the Gospel. That is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to make everyone right with God, anyone who will chose it, anyone who makes the choice. It isn’t limited for certain individuals, but it is for anyone and everyone. Once a person hears about it, they then have a choice to make. This is the eternal decree. There is no other way to enlightenment. One cannot achieve enlightenment from rigorous effort or even by surrendering one’s self to that position. That is because the truth is contained in God himself—and it is shown forth through the Gospel. It is as Paul told the Roman believers, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (ESV). One can effort or surrender all they want, but without a word from God, without the light of the pathway to what the truth actually is, it is all for nothing. One can give up the actual ‘isness’ or ‘beingness,’ but without revelation of what actually is, of what exists, one cannot believe in anything. It is belief in God through Jesus where one finds life, All other pathways, no matter what they are, fall short. They cannot get us there.

       Many pathways bear fruit, including all those that pertain to falsity. There is a common belief that numbers tell the true story. But, we know, or should know by now, that that isn’t the case. If numbers told the story, then a lot would be true that is contrary to Christianity, contrary to the Word of God. Paul is thankful that his Gospel “is bearing fruit and increasing.” We need to be careful, though, that “bearing fruit and increasing” isn’t a sure marker of denoting in life that which is true, but it was just the case that during this time in Paul’s ministry the Gospel was having success. The truth is that the Gospel will always bear fruit, as it never returns void, but it may not always be reaping great success (at least, by our evaluation of external appearances). The fact that it is successful in this circumstance is what makes Paul happy. Remember, Jesus noted that “And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town” (Matthew 10:14, ESV). Now, granted he was referring to the people of Israel when he spoke that, but the principle is still the same in that the Gospel is not always going to bear a lot of fruit. People have the choice to accept or reject the truth, and that has no forceful persuasion from God.

       Notice that the character of the individual person is said to be “bearing fruit and increasing” as well. It isn’t just the message, but it is also the individual who is growing or abounding. For anyone looking at a lot of churches in our general day, it might be presumed that the mature character of the Christian is one who is good at evangelizing others, wherever that person be. That’s a common theme among evangelical circles. It’s almost as if one’s maturity is defined by how well one can share the Gospel with others. Obviously, though, if we are honest with ourselves, the true focus of Christian character development was what Paul listed elsewhere, namely the Fruit of the Spirit. That fruit that the Spirit begets in us. Each of the fruits is fused in the Gospel message. If you go through each fruit, you can see that the Gospel brings each of those out in the Christian. We start with love. God so loved us that we are given the perfect example of what love really is, versus what the world might say it is. If we take peace, we understand, again, that as Christians we can truly have peace because we are now in personal relationship with the God of the Universe.

       So, the understanding “of the grace of God” comes “in truth,” as Paul said. There are lots of understandings of the grace of God that we could come up with. We could say that the grace of God saves all. Or, we could say that the grace of God includes all. We could even say that within the grace of God comes no judgment toward anybody. The problem is, none of these statements are “in truth.” They might be an attempt to describe the grace of God, but they violate the truth. The truth comes from the Scriptures, though, even there, people have varying perspectives of what the Scriptures are actually saying. The fair way to tell, though, what the truth is behind the truth is to simply remember that the truth is found is simplicity. The truth is found in simplicity. That then tells us that the easy explanation is usually the correct explanation. The more elaborate and the more explaining it takes to describe something, or the further reasoning involved, generally means were are moving away from the truth. For instance, if one were to make the statement “Fornication is bad,” that lines right up with what the Scriptures say. But if one were to say, “Well, you know, the Scriptures were referring to an unreasonable fornication that was present in that culture at the time.” Now, through complexity, we are moving away from the truth. We are moving to a non-truth.

       Finishing for today, in verse 7, Paul says, “…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, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit” (Colossians 1:6-8, ESV).

       Now we come to understand by whom the truth came. Sure, it originally came from Paul to the Gentile world. Recollect, it is with the Gentile world that he is dealing with in this letter. This message somehow made it to the hands on one named Epaphras, who is called “a faithful minister.” So he is the head of the that church in Colossae, presumably, the primary pastor if you will. And we really don’t know much about this man. Nevertheless, he is said to be Paul and Timothy’s “beloved fellow servant.” We note he was viewed with high respect by them. We can also note about his character that he was “a faithful minister of Christ on [their] behalf.” Just as Christ modeled, he worked to help build up that fruit we are talking about a moment ago in each member. Really, it’s that simple for the leader of the church. It’s not complicated. Though, that’s not to say it hasn’t become complicated with the intricacies and big meeting places in the modern church world. But he must have been doing a good job since he was able to report back to Paul and Timothy the love the church has for one another.

       Let us pause for a moment and consider the subject of church growth, and how the growth relates, or correlates, with the size of the church. The understanding is, and unfortunately the mind does not recall were it learned this, but a study was done in which it was determined that the perfect size for a community is about 150 people. After that, it appears the group becomes too large for everyone to effectively interact with each other. We know a lot of churches make use of small groups, and one reason for that is because of this fact. Especially for a larger church, small groups are almost critical. Otherwise, relationships only remain at a surface level, cultivated by the people who are communicated to before, during, and after Sunday morning services. Church events might help, but the relationships, unless continued outside of church on a more personal level, remain surface. Small groups, however, work to take care of this issue and break down a church into more manageable size groups. But the true rule of thumb really, if one was to have the best experience in knowing everyone, would be a church size that is no greater than 150 people. The larger church concept seems to be a newer one which, practically and experientially, is foreign to good relations.

       To drive this point further home, as undoubtedly there will be some likely to object, is the personal experience of high school. The high school class was around 400 people. In the years that followed, when describing the size of the class to others, and at times seeing raised eye brows, it was noted that only about half the class was actually known. The other half, while most names might have been recognized or remembered, there was no personal knowledge really of the individuals. So, in this case, the actual number of people known fairly was about 200 people. And, of course, of most of those individuals were known only some facts. They weren’t known in a great amount. But it goes to show in this personal example that any size group that is larger than at least 200 people has little hope of functioning in closeness.

- Daniel Litton