Colossians chapter one and verse
one. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
by the will of God and Timotheus, our brother, to the saints and
faithful brethren in Christ, which are at Colossae, grace
be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. We give thanks to God and the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since
we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love which he
have to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you
in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the
gospel. which is come unto you, as it
is in all the world, and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also
in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of
God in truth. As ye also learned of Epaphras,
our dear fellow servant, who is for you a faithful minister
of Christ, who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit,
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease
to pray for you and to desire that ye might be filled with
the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,
that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being
fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge
of God. strengthened with all might according
to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with
joyfulness, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us
meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath
delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated
us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. who is the image of
the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by him
were all things created that are in heaven and that are in
earth, visible and invisible. Whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers, all things were created by him
and for him. And he is before all things,
and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body,
the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that
in him should all fullness dwell. And having made peace through
the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto
himself, By him I say whether they be things in earth or things
in heaven. And you that were sometime alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and
unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. If ye continue
in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the
hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached
to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made
a minister. Who now rejoice in my sufferings
for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions
of Christ in my flesh, for his body's sake, which is the church. whereof I am made a minister
according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for
you, to fulfil the word of God. Even the mystery, which hath
been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his
saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in
you. the hope of glory, whom we preach,
warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that
we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, whereunto I
also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh
in me mightily. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. When the Lord Jesus Christ met
Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road, he called and he converted
and he commissioned this young man. Paul would probably be around
30 years of age at this time. He commissioned this young man
to go on to serve and proclaim his saviour for the rest of his
life. and Saul of Tarsus, or as he
became better known as Paul. The distinction there is most
likely that Paul would be more recognisable as a Gentile name,
while Saul was a name that he would be recognised with amongst
the Jews. So he took the name Paul, perhaps
a Romanised name, and this was the name that he used as he travelled
amongst the Gentiles. And we find that this young man,
as I say probably around 30, would go on to serve his saviour
for the rest of his life with a resolve and with a fortitude. that would show him to be a man
of distinct determination. The Lord at that time of the
apostles' conversion told Ananias, a man, a believer who lived there
in Damascus and who was able to go and minister somewhat to
Saul of Tarsus in his distraught state, He said to Ananias, the
Lord speaking, that this man Saul was a chosen vessel unto
the Lord, that he would bear the Lord's name before the Gentiles,
that he would bear it before kings, and he would bear it before
the children of Israel. For the Lord said to Ananias,
I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's
sake. And suffer he did. Suffer this
man Paul most certainly did. If we need any proof of the sufferings
that he went through, then we need only look to the end of
his epistle to 2 Corinthians, because there in chapter 11,
he gives a catalogue of all the trials and the difficulties that
he went through, how that he was beaten with rods, how that
he was stoned, how that he was shipwrecked, how that he spent
nights in the ocean. Can you imagine what that must
have been like to float around in the ocean in the darkness
all night? And there was more to follow
because we discovered if we look a little bit at the times that The Apostle Paul, as he was writing
to the Romans, we were thinking about that last week when we
came to the end of our studies in the book of Romans. He wrote
to the Romans from Corinth and he was heading then to Jerusalem. So as he went to Jerusalem, we
discover from the Book of Acts that there he was assaulted. There, there was an assassination
attempt on his life, that the Jews took a vow to slay him. They tried to kill him. And from
there, he had to appeal to Caesar in order not to be beaten again
by the Roman soldiers there in Jerusalem. because of the mob
that had gathered and because of the riot that had occurred. And from there, that was long
after that list of troubles that the Apostle Paul had recounted
in 2 Corinthians 11. From there, he was yet to stand
before Felix, to stand before Festus, to stand before Agrippa. He had yet to be shipwrecked
once again. He had to be washed up on the
island of Malta. He had to be bitten by a snake
and only then get to Rome where his trial would take place. In Rome, the Apostle Paul would
spend two years waiting for his case to come before the courts. And he used that time before his trial to minister,
and he used it to preach. So when he had written from Corinth,
to the Romans in his letter, his epistle to the Romans, that
he longed to be amongst them so that he might encourage them
and be encouraged by them. It took several years for him
to get there and it wasn't under the same circumstances that he
had envisaged but here he is in Rome, here he is with a house
that he rents because he's as it were under house arrest and
he is able to minister and fellowship with all those who come and go. Four years previously he had
written this epistle, this large epistle to the little church
at Rome And now he is in Rome, these years later, after all
of these other events and adventures that he has had. And we discover
that the last two verses of the Book of Acts, in Acts chapter
28, verse 30 and 31, tell us about this moment, this moment
to which the Apostle Paul has come. And we are told there that
Paul dwelt for two whole years in his own hired house and he
received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of
God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus
Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. and then
the story stops. Then we have no more account
from the writer Luke as to what happened to the apostle. He is
simply waiting on his trial taking place. It seems from other incidental
comments in some of the later epistles, for example to Titus
and Timothy, that Paul, after his two years, did in fact go
in front of his judges and then he was allowed some time to minister,
to leave Rome and to minister. We don't know anything about
where he went or what he did in that time. And then he came
back to Rome again, after which some time he was martyred. But Acts stops with Paul in Rome
and he is waiting for this first trial to take place. Why am I telling you all this? Why am I telling you all this
about the Apostle? Well, for this reason, that this
is the context now in which the book of Colossians is written. Because it is now in this period
of two years that the Apostle Paul has time and opportunity
to sit down and write this letter to the Colossians. This letter,
the book of the Colossians, which we have in our New Testament,
in our scriptures, came from the pen of Paul during these
two years that he spent waiting for his trial before Caesar. So it's called house arrest.
He's under house arrest, but there's a certain flexibility.
It's clear that he had a degree of trust granted to him and he
was ready to go to the courts and defend his beliefs and his
position. He had been charged principally
because the Jews had charged him and they wanted to bring
a case against him. And now as he waits for that
case to be brought, he employs his time in ministering, in fellowshipping,
in preaching the gospel, and in writing a number of letters. And in the providence of God
the Holy Spirit, here we have the apostle Awaiting trial, yes. Restricted in his activities,
yes. But using this time profitably. Because what does he do? He writes
to us. He writes to you and me. He writes
to the multiple generations that have comprised the body of Christ
down through the centuries from those days, probably around about
AD 60, when he was in Rome awaiting his trial. And as he waited there
to see what the courts would decide, he wrote to the various
churches and he wrote effectively to you and to me. You know, I
think that that's an interesting point and I didn't want to pass
it by as we thought about the introduction of this book because
we live in days when things are not going our way and things
are seemingly complex and difficult and troublesome and hurdles and
barriers are put in our path and disappointments come along
and it seems as if our plans and our aspirations and our hopes
are being distorted and thwarted and prevented. We've got a virus
loose in our society and it is causing a havoc that while it
seems some people have thought about and anticipated, the vast
majority of us have not considered too deeply. or perhaps an illness
comes upon us and we find that our days are darkened because
we feel unwell, or a disruption to a plan, and do we not find
that every disruption that comes upon us is a disappointment to
us because we have anticipated what we're going to do? And yet
here is an example from the life of Paul, where his disappointment
was God's provision for his church. The Apostle Paul envisaged that
he would go and he would go to Rome and he would worship in
Rome and then afterwards he would go to Spain and he would carry
the gospel to Spain. What happened? He went to Jerusalem. He got punched. They tried to
kill him. And out of that incident, which
he didn't want, which he didn't expect, came the books of Ephesians,
Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. These four books written
during the time of Paul's incarceration at Rome. What else happened in
that time? Well, much, no doubt, as the
apostle fellowshiped and worshipped with the church there at Rome.
But one thing we do know, that a runaway slave called Onesimus
heard Paul preaching. and was saved as a direct result
of the ministry that he heard from the apostles' lips. Is this
not a lesson to us? Is this not encouragement for
the Lord's people to be still and know that I am God? For us
to take cognizance of our circumstances and say that even although this
disruption has come upon us, even although these barriers
are before us, even although we are disappointed in the things
that are happening in our life, that God is in control and a
better thing will flow from this. for the greater good of his church
and people than had we been allowed to carry forward our plans unhindered. This is the application of the
word of God in the souls of the people of God. We look at how
the Lord has dealt with his servants in times past and how he has
brought out of their difficulties much sweetness, much fruitfulness
and much blessing to a far greater number than ever could have been
touched if Paul had followed through his plan and gone to
Spain. So here we have the book of Colossians. And the apostle in the opening
verses of this book identifies himself as he does in all of
those letters that he writes to the Gentile churches. And
he calls himself Paul for the reasons that we've given. It's
a name that he had taken. It's the name that he was known
by amongst the Gentiles, probably for that Latinized name that
it was a Roman name rather than a Jewish name. And it shows us
that the Apostle was keen to identify himself with the Gentiles
even to the point of taking a name that was most suitable. So he
identifies himself, this is his letter, and he calls himself,
he takes the title, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of
God. So it's Paul, an apostle of Jesus
Christ, by the will of God. He owns this message. He says
to the world, this is me writing. This is Paul. This is my message. And I think the reason why we
need to see that and to just pause for a moment in our consideration
of the way in which Paul begins this letter is to realise that
already, In the society of this time there were false gospels
and there were deviations from the truth. There were people
who were shysters we might call them. There were people who were
pretend apostles. There were people who were taking
authority to themselves and saying that we too come from Jerusalem. We too carry a message from God. We too come to be leaders amongst
you. And I'm always surprised when
we read the New Testament, although I probably ought not to be, at
the frequency with which the apostles in writing their epistles
have to correct and have to redirect the thinking of their audience
back to the gospel truths and the foundational truths that
they first believed. And so the apostle owns this
message. And as it were, he had said when
he was writing to the Romans, perhaps you recall it in chapter
16 of Romans, where he says that this is my gospel. This is the
gospel of the Apostle Paul and he is writing to the Colossians
with the gospel, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, but he
says it's my gospel. It's my gospel because this is
the gospel that I was commissioned. This is the gospel that I was
authorized. This is the gospel that I was
sent to deliver to the Gentiles. And so he distinguishes this
from the gospel of anyone else. This was not a gospel from man.
It was the gospel from Christ. And it was the gospel that the
Apostle Paul preached all his life. and he is an apostle. He's an apostle because he has
seen the Lord Jesus Christ in person, he has received from
the Lord Jesus Christ his commission, and he has received from the
Lord Jesus Christ his doctrine. And this is why he says that
he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. He is authorised from Christ
to carry this message to the Gentiles. He did not receive
these doctrines from men. This message comes with an authority
from God himself. He is writing to people that
he has never met before. He is writing to people amongst
whom false teachers are already coming in and saying, now you've
not to believe that man. Paul, you've not to take on board
his teaching and it's for the same reason as we were reflecting
last week. about this challenge that had
arisen in the early church between the law and the gospel, and how
there were many who came from Jerusalem and they were Jews
who had converted, ostensibly so, to the new doctrines, the
new faith of Christ, but they were endeavouring to merge and
meld and bind together the teaching of Moses, the law of Moses, obedience
to Moses, and the pleasing of God through faith in Christ. And the Apostle Paul was endeavouring
to steer a straight path to show that Salvation did not come from
obedience to the law, but salvation was by grace alone. God's grace, God's goodness,
God's mercy is what brought men and women into the experience
of salvation. And that was received by faith
alone, not by works. but by faith alone. And these
enemies of Paul, these enemies of the Gospel, these Jews came
amongst the Gentile churches and they endeavoured to undermine
the authority of the Gospel that Paul preached. And so in order
to emphasise his own identity, to speak to people that he had
never met before, and to reassert the authority that he had against
these denouncing enemies, the Apostle Paul reminds his audience
that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ with an authority in his
message, and he comes to them at the will of God. This was
God's will. This was the will of God that
he had purposed in all eternity, that the Apostle Paul would be
his chosen preacher. It was God's will that the Apostle
be called, as he repeats his own personal testimony several
times, to bear witness of this calling. The Apostle Paul was
called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. He was qualified by the
Lord Jesus Christ. He did not receive his doctrine
from men, but he was taught these things by God the Holy Spirit
from the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He was enabled to travel, doors
were opened for him. He was given the comfort of the
presence of Christ repeatedly. He was given miracles that he
was able to perform to show the authority that he had to preach
this gospel. And that ministry was facilitated
because doors opened, men heard and believed and throughout the
whole of the known world at that time where the gospel was being
preached and the boundaries were being pushed, men and women were
being converted to this gospel that the apostle preached and
thereby he testifies that God himself had blessed this word. So he was an apostle of Jesus
Christ by the will of God, purposed, called, qualified, enabled, facilitated
and blessed in this great work upon which he was embarked. That's
the first point about the Apostle Paul and his title. Who else
does he say this letter is from? Well, he goes on to say that
he is writing also on behalf of Timothy. And it's lovely to
see what he says about Timothy. He calls him brother Timothy. He says, Timothy, Timotheus,
our brother. And this is the same Timothy
that we find traveling with the apostle for many years, probably
around or in excess of 12 years. These two men traveled together. Timothy was a much younger man.
The apostle calls him at a different time his son. and he speaks,
as you will recall, favourably about Timothy's mother and his
grandmother. But it certainly appears that
the apostle Paul nurtured and encouraged this young man. He
saw something in him, something in his character, something in
his testimony, something in his faith that showed the apostle
that here was a man who would be useful to him in his ministry
and labours of the gospel. So he takes this young man. Timothy,
we discover from the Acts of the Apostles, was from Lystra,
a city where Paul went several times. I think he went on both
his first and his second missionary journey to Lystra. And it was
there at Lystra that Paul had been stoned. It was there that
he was stoned and he was left for dead. He was dragged through
the streets of the city. He was dumped unceremoniously
outside of the city and the Jews left him dead. And we're told
that as the believers in Lystra stood around about him, he stood
up. He stood up and went back into
the city. Well, I think that I can be justified
in surmising that Timothy was in that crowd of believers that
day when he saw the Apostle Paul standing up from one as who had
been dead. And that young man was later
collected by the Apostle as his travelling companion and he accompanied
Paul in his ministry. He had grown helpful to Paul. He proved himself to be a reliable
man. And he is mentioned here in the
opening of Colossians. He's also mentioned in the opening
verse of Philippians and in the opening verse of Ephesians. So the Apostle Paul, as he writes
these books to the various churches, writes them on behalf of himself
with the apostolic authority that he bears and he includes
Timothy's name with him. doubtless as recommendations
to these churches that should this young man, Timothy, ever
be sent to them or come amongst them or minister to them, bring
the gospel to them, that they would recognise him and that
they would receive him and that they would give him the honour
that was due to him as a preacher of the gospel. And so here we
discover that Paul is with Timothy. And I just want to mention one
other thing, that it is possible that Timothy is also imprisoned
with Paul. While that's not explicitly said
in Acts, nor is it explicitly said in any of these letters
that were written at this time. We do discover in Hebrews chapter
13 and verse 23 that the Apostle Paul there makes reference to
the fact that Timothy is set at liberty. Know ye that our brother Timothy
is set at liberty, with whom, if he come shortly, I will see
you. I think I said the Apostle Paul
there. That makes an assumption that it was the Apostle Paul
that wrote the book of Hebrews. While I cannot be categoric upon
that, I think it is most probable and likely that he did. But here
we find at least that Timothy was now set at liberty. So he
had been imprisoned at some time. So here we see this young man,
not only with the Apostle Paul, but also entering into the same
persecution that the Apostle Paul endured. The last thing
that I can say just about Timothy is a little bit of a sort of
pleasurable thing for me in my own mind. And I'll just share
it with you because I like the idea of it. The last thing that
we know about the Apostle Paul, the very last thing that we know
about the Apostle in his life, is a request that he makes to
Timothy. And he writes to Timothy and
he says, Come and see me. Come to me. And he asks him twice
in 2nd Timothy if he will come and join him. The old apostle
in prison awaiting his sentence asks Timothy if he will come
and visit him. and he asks him if he'll bring
a coat with him and he asks him to bring some parchments with
him as well. The old apostle was feeling the
cold as he was in prison and he wanted Timothy to bring his
coat. You know what? I don't know whether Timothy
got there before Paul's martyrdom. I don't know whether he got there
with the coat. I don't know whether he was able
to see his friend again before he died. I would like to think
that he did and that the two were able to share some fellowship
together before Paul's demise. But that's the last we hear of
Paul and also of Timothy. The next thing I wanted to point
out about these opening verses is that the Apostle's audience
is the saints and faithful brethren in Christ. So Paul addresses
his epistle to a certain group of people. This is his letter
to the Colossians and that's important. I've already mentioned that Paul
had likely not met these people before. And as we will see later
on, as we come further down this opening chapter, he knows them
because of a man called Epaphras. And Epaphras is, it seems, their
minister. He's mentioned in verse 7. as
you also learned of Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who
is for you a faithful minister of Christ. So here's this man,
Epaphras. And Epaphras appears to have
come to the apostle and spoken of the Colossians and the circumstances
with the Colossians, the situation, what's happening there in that
little church. And the apostle Paul has been
motivated on the basis of the things that Epaphras has had
to say to write this letter to the Colossians. And I want you
to notice that it's a directed letter. And some people might
not like what I'm about to say. Some people might say, well,
well, that's you just being a little bit hyper. That's you being a
little bit too restrictive. That's you being too narrow.
But here's my point. This letter is for the saints
and the faithful. This letter is addressed to the
saints and the faithful. The blessings and the promises
of this letter are for those to whom it is addressed. The
blessings and the promises are for the saints and the faithful.
Now, I've perhaps mentioned this before, but I trust we wouldn't
dream of picking up private correspondence opening that up and reading it
and assuming that the contents of that correspondence were for
us. That would be presumptuous, that
would be a false notion. But these things were for the
saints and the faithful. Just look with me at verse 25. I want to just give you a couple
of examples. Look at verse 25. The Apostle
Paul is here speaking about the fact that he has been made a
minister at this time to take this message to the Gentiles. And this is what he says, even the mystery which hath been
hid from ages and from generations but now is made manifest to his
saints." That mystery, that mystery of the gospel is made manifest
to his saints. Again it's not universal, it's
not going to be understood, it's not going to be revealed to,
it's not going to be the possession of A general audience, it is
the possession and the inheritance of the saints of God. And he becomes emphatic. Verse
27. To whom, that is the saints of
God, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory
of this mystery among the Gentiles. which is Christ in you. That union that we have with
the Lord Jesus Christ, this eternal union, this covenant union that
we've been thinking about recently. This union is the mystery and
it's revealed to the saints and only the saints. the hope of
glory, whom we preach, warning every man and teaching every
man in all wisdom, who, that's the saints, teaching all men,
all the saints, all the men in all wisdom, that we may present
every man. What? Every saint. perfect in
Christ, whereunto I also labour. And that's important, because
if we take these general statements, references to every man, and
apply them to every man, then we find that the apostle is saying
things, if we simply strip a verse out of context, that is inappropriate,
misleading, and ultimately soul damning. This is made known to the saints. Just take another example, flip
over to chapter three. And there in verse 12 is another
example. He's writing to whom? He's writing
to the saints and the faithful, those who are believers, those
who have tasted the sweet grace of God in Christ. And what does
he say? Put on, therefore, as the elect
of God. Holy and beloved, bowels of mercies,
kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing
one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel
against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. We cannot say universally that
a man or a woman is the elect of God. We cannot see universally
that the Lord Jesus Christ has forgiven every man and woman. We cannot give the benefits of
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ to all
men and women indiscriminately as if these things are not narrowed
down in the writings of the apostles. So we see that these general
references must be conditioned upon the audience to whom the
letter was addressed. I'm making that point because
we will come to it in later verses throughout this little book.
But here we see again that this is for the elect. These blessings
are for the elect. They're not for the world. They're
not for the ungodly, not for the carnal. We are not to offer
Christ indiscriminately. We are not to liberally dispense
invitations to sinners to come to Christ and receive the benefits
and the blessings of the work of Christ. Because these things
are for the church uniquely. If we do that, we take what belongs
uniquely to the church, and we give it to the world, which has
no right to it and has no inheritance in it. We are effectively taking
the children's bread and giving it to dogs. And doing that, as
many, many churches do today, failing to distinguish, failing
to be particular, failing to be precise in the applications
of these doctrinal truths, these foundational truths, it betrays
a profound lack of understanding of the covenant purpose of God.
And instead of simply preaching Christ and leaving God the spirit
to effectually persuade sinners to accept Christ, we feel we
must do God's job for Him. And that's the presumptuous voice
of free will talking. That's the presumptuous voice
which says, I can do God's work in my own soul. And you know
what? I can do it in yours too. And
that's what many preachers and ministers do today with their
free will, duty, faith, gospel. What is salvation? Salvation
is God's work of grace in a sinner's life. No man yet saved himself
and we merely confirm our prejudices as proud fallen creatures when
we preach that any man can save himself. Salvation is God's work
The apostle will later write to Titus in chapter three, verse
five, and he'll say that this is God's work. According to his
mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Ghost. Can you wash yourself with the
washing of regeneration? Can you renew yourself with the
Holy Ghost? These are divine works. These
are God's works. And why else would the apostle,
in the next verse, verse three of chapter one of Colossians,
say, we give thanks to God for you. Why would the apostle Paul
say, we give thanks to God for you, if it had been the work
of the individual Colossians themselves? So who are these
saints and faithful that he is speaking of? Well, they are the
ones who have been sanctified. That's what the word saints means.
The sanctified ones. They are the set apart ones.
The chosen of God unto salvation. Those who have been placed in
Christ in the eternal purpose of the Godhead, in the plan of
salvation, in the covenant of peace. These are also called,
and this is a beautiful little phrase, the excellent of the
earth. Psalm 16 verse 3 says, but to
the saints that are in the earth. and to the excellent in whom
is all my delight. You see, these are the saints
and the faithful, those in whom the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit delight, have always delighted, will always delight,
and for that delight came and saved their souls. They're saints
because they're sanctified. Sanctified in the covenant, sanctified
in Christ, sanctified in their calling, sanctified in their
conversion, made faithful to the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ, which they have received and believed through the preaching
of that gospel. And they are faithful to the
Saviour, faithful to Christ himself. Let me point out another couple
of things here by way of introduction. This place that is being written
to is a city called Colossae and it was a city in southwest
Turkey. The area is sometimes called
Phrygia. or Asia Minor. So when we see
Phrygia or Asia Minor being talked about in the Acts of the Apostles,
it's speaking about modern-day Turkey, it's speaking about the
southwest corner of Turkey as it approaches onto the Mediterranean
Sea and That's where Colossae was situated. It was a river
town, and it was a town where there was trade and a principal
road. It was a Gentile city, so the
Colossians were mostly polytheists. They believed in a multitude
of gods. They had a lot of different gods.
They would not have had a great knowledge of the Jewish scriptures,
only what they had picked up probably from there being a synagogue
in the city and hearing and seeing the Jews of that synagogue going
about their particular worship. However, what we will discover
as we go through this book is that the Apostle Paul has to
address both of those matters. He addresses both the subject
of the possibility or the likelihood
of some of these individual Colossians accepting Jesus as it were as
one of their gods and placing Jesus on a shelf in their cabinet
of gods. And others would be influenced
by these Judaizing Christians that I spoke about earlier who
were coming and endeavoring to enforce the new converts back
under the law of Moses and saying that they had to be obedient
to the laws of Moses and the various obligations that were
incumbent upon the Jews of that pre-Christian era. Back to thinking about Colossae,
it seems as if Epaphras may have been the pastor and even the
founder of the church at Colossae. And here he meets the Apostle
Paul in Rome. Just one other little thing about
the city. If you'll turn with me to chapter
4. And verse 12, we speak there
about Epaphras again, and it says here, Epaphras, who is one
of you, so he is from Colossae, a servant of Christ, saluteth
you. So he is presently with the Apostle
in Rome. always labouring fervently for
you in prayers. So although he is absent in the
body, he is present with them in his spirit. He is praying
for them constantly and fervently, that ye may stand perfect and
complete in all the will of God. Verse 13, for I bear him record
that he hath a great zeal for you, and for them that are in
Laodicea, and them in Hierapolis. So here we've got two other towns,
two other cities mentioned, Laodicea and Hierapolis and Colossae. So these three towns for whom
Epaphras prays are a little group of towns probably around 10 miles
apart, and they may well be called a tri-city area. I know that
we have a number of tri-city areas in the states. And Colossae,
Hierapolis, and Laodicea are a tri-city state. And just one
other extra biblical comment to make it at this point. The
records appear to suggest from ancient times that there was
an earthquake destroyed this area shortly after the Apostle
Paul wrote to them. And so that's just something
to keep in the back of our mind as a possibility. I'm not going
to make a big thing of it, but it appears to be historically
attested that there was a quite devastating earthquake here in
this area shortly after the Apostle Paul wrote, perhaps even just
a matter of months or a year or so. And perhaps for some of
these believers to whom he was writing. They were standing at
the doorstep of eternity. The final thing I want to draw
your attention to is just the little phrase that the apostle
uses in his salutation. So he has said, Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timotheus, our brother,
to the saints and faithful brethren. So he's addressing and identifying
his audience. in Christ, which are at Colossae. We've just thought about the
city and its connection with Epaphras and these other two
cities, the Adygea and Herapolis. Grace be unto you, says the Apostle,
and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So
in conclusion, grace be unto you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the usual salutation
from the Apostle Paul. and it is a good end point for
us this evening. It's a fine statement with which
we can at the very least repudiate the
heretics who would deny the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. God
here is properly called the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And He is the Father of our Saviour,
and He is our Father also. So God is properly the Father
of the Saviour, who is the Son of God, but the Apostle Paul
here says that He is our Father also. And this shows us that
we are adopted in Christ as sons and as brothers with Christ,
as sons of God. And Galatians chapter four verse
five says that we have been redeemed, that is redeemed by the blood
of Christ, bought by the blood of Christ, that we might receive
the adoption of sons. And this is this family relationship
that we see here in the apostles Again, he writes this to all
the churches that he writes his letters to, that they are to
be recipients of the grace and the peace from God, our Father,
and the Lord Jesus Christ. So he's our Father as we are
in Christ. As we have been redeemed by the
blood of Christ, so we have been brought into that family relationship,
that union together with Christ, whereby the Son of God is our
brother. and we are adopted as children
of the Most High God. And he says to them, grace and
peace. These are two gifts from God
that come to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we're not
talking here when the apostle speaks of grace and peace. He's
not speaking of saving grace, as if he's saying, I want, or
I hope, or I desire that saving grace will come to you. When
he says grace and peace to you, or grace and peace be unto you,
he's not saying that he wants saving grace to come to them
because they already have saving grace. They are saints and faithful. So he's not talking about saving
grace. What he's speaking about here
is a grace that is a growing grace. This is Paul's desire. They didn't need grace and they
didn't need reconciliation because they already are reconciled to
God in Christ. We can see that if we look at
verse 21. He says there that and you that
were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath he reconciled. They were already reconciled,
so they already had peace with God. So they already had the
grace of God and they already had peace with God. So when he
says grace and peace unto you, it's not talking about that saving
grace or that reconciling peace. These already they possess. Rather,
Paul's desire for the Colossians, and Paul's desire for all who
believe, is that they may grow in grace, and that they may develop
their understanding of the grace of God. That they would have
an increasing knowledge of the truth. And indeed that's the
purpose of his letter, to open up that access into the apostolic
truth, into that foundation of truth, that apostolic foundation
of truth, which these young believers had to learn at the hand of the
Apostle and at their teachers. This was the gospel, the deepening
knowledge of the gospel. Shame to those who imagine that
the gospel is a mere proposition that is to be made to offer life
and peace and eternal happiness to somebody on the say-so of
a decision. The gospel is the whole counsel
of God and as we enter into Christ as we believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ, so we begin a process of living unto Him, serving Him,
and learning of Him. And that's what this letter is
for, as were indeed all of the Apostle's letters and all of
his preaching ministry, that we might learn Christ, that we
might deepen our experience of God's goodness, His mercy, His
love, and His comfort. and experience the peace of God. Not just a knowledge of a reconciliation,
but actually experience in our hearts, experience in our souls,
that peace that passes understanding. Certainly there is a reconciling
peace towards the rebel that comes through the mediatorship
of Christ. But there is also a peace which
comes into our consciences in the knowledge that our sins are
forgiven and forgotten and washed away in the blood of Jesus Christ. A peace that enters into our
hearts in the knowledge that our sins have been removed from
off our shoulders, laid upon Christ and sunk deep into the
sea of His forgetfulness. And also there is a peace among
brethren that is to be grown and nourished and encouraged,
a peace in our relationships together, a peace in our hearts,
one towards another. And so we've come to the end
of what I had to say. The apostle says in chapter three,
verse 15, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts. to the which also ye are called
in one body, and be ye thankful. I think that's a very suitable
way to conclude our thoughts this evening and to bring our
thoughts this evening to an end. In a little while, we will bring
our service to its conclusion and we'll be able perhaps to
pick up in Colossians on another occasion. And just before we
do that, I want to read another little hymn to you and I thought
this was particularly suitable just for some of the things that
we had been thinking about this evening. It's by Joseph Hart. Mr Hart is a favourite hymn writer
of mine as you probably realise by now and it's entitled The
Christian's life is a paradox. Listen carefully to what he has
to say, because I think you'll have a little smile at just how
insightful Mr. Hart is. No doubt, from looking
at his own heart, he is able to write these stanzas and give
us cause for consideration. He says, How strange is the course
that a Christian must steer How perplexed is the path he must
tread The hope of his happiness rises from fear And his life
he receives from the dead His fairest pretensions must wholly
be waived And his best resolutions be crossed Nor can he expect
to be perfectly saved till he finds himself utterly lost. When
all this is done and his heart is assured of the total remission
of sins, when his pardon is signed and his peace is procured, from
that moment his conflict begins. Amen. Well, thank you once again
for your time this evening. Thank you for sharing with us
in the message. I trust that you will be blessed
as we embark upon this little study of the book of Colossians.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also
ye are called in one body, and be ye thankful. And whatsoever
ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Amen. And amen. And I will bring our
stream to a conclusion now. And thank you very much for your
attendance and your presence with us this evening.