Christ the King Presbyterian Church

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Rev. John Pennylegion – October 25, 2026

Good morning. Welcome to Christ the King. If we haven’t met, my name is Penny, and I’m the senior pastor here, and friends, it is good to be with you. If you are a guest or a visitor, we’re especially glad that you would join us this morning, and we are finishing up this morning, actually, our series in the book of Colossians. So we’re going to be wrapping up our series in Colossians, and next week we’ll be turning to a minor prophet in the Old Testament for a few weeks before Advent, but this morning we’re in Colossians 4, so if you have a Bible, you can turn to Colossians 4. If you don’t have a Bible, there are Bibles in the chairs in front of you, and we also project the passage on the screen, and if you came here this morning and you don’t have a Bible and you would like one, we would love for you to take that Bible in the chair with you today. That’s our gift to you. We would love for you to have that.

But as we look at the end of Colossians 4, if you’re familiar with the New Testament, particularly the letters of Paul or John or Peter, then the end of Colossians won’t be very surprising to you, because at the end, we have a farewell. We have final remarks. Paul’s going to name people that have been laboring alongside him, have been working with him for the advancement of the gospel. He’s wrapping things up. But if you’re not familiar with the New Testament and the various writings that we encounter in the New Testament, then it might be surprising that we have this list of names in the way that Paul concludes the letter, because for many people, we think of the Bible as simply a collection of theological treatises. And so when we come to passages like this, it might seem odd, because we’re expecting sort of like a systematic theology textbook, and that’s not what we’re getting. Because that’s actually not what the Bible is, right? In the New Testament particularly, much of the New Testament are letters, letters written by particular people like Peter and John and Paul. They’re not simply theological abstractions that are cast out into the ether. No, they’re letters addressing particular issues written to particular people by an actual person. And that’s what these farewell remarks in these letters often remind me of, that we’re reading someone else’s mail, right? A personal letter that he wrote to people that he has connection to, relationship with, and he’s dealing with actual issues.

And so these verses, they’re not throw away. I imagine that for some of us, I won’t ask for a show of hands, but I imagine for some of us as we go through our Bible reading plans, if you do that sort of thing, when you come to these portions, you kind of look at and go, okay, first Thessalonians, let’s move on, right? We skip over the passages that have lots of names and names that are hard to understand and names that we don’t know anything about. And I understand that. I resonate. I tend to move through these a little quicker than other passages. However, this is God’s word. It’s all God’s word, even these portions. And so it’s good for us to take a few minutes and to glean from this what Paul was saying about these people and what he was saying to them and what they were called to do and what he’s saying to us, who we are and what we’re called to do. So with that in mind, let’s read Colossians 4, beginning in verse 7. Paul writes,

“Tychicus will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts, and with him

Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They will tell you of everything that has taken place here.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 Jesus who is called Justus. These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis. Luke the beloved physician greets you, as does Demas. Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house. And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea. And say to Archippus, “See that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord.” I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.”

This is the word of the Lord. Let me pray for us.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and ask that you would help us. Father, we need your help. Apart from your Spirit’s work, we would remain blind to your truth. We’d remain hardened to your grace. We would turn our attention away from your kindness. And so we pray, Father, that you would open our eyes, unplug our ears, and soften our hearts. We ask that you would be with me so that my words would be clear and full of truth, and that you would be with all of us so that we would be attentive to your grace. And we pray all this in Christ’s name. Amen.

One of my favorite all-time television shows is the fictitious political drama, The West Wing. Kat and I have watched The West Wing through maybe five, six, I don’t know how many times. It’s a lot. It seems like we go through it every few years. And I love The West Wing. It’s the story of President Bartlett and the people that are surrounding him in the West Wing, the different directors, the different vice presidents, all these sorts of people. And one of the characters in The West Wing is a man named Tobey Ziegler. Tobey Ziegler is the communications director for the president. And Tobey Ziegler is a very gruff man. He’s not warm. He’s not fuzzy. He’s not loving. He’s full of truth and firmness. And he’s usually the smartest man in the room. And he wants everyone to know he’s the smartest man in the room. And so he flies off the handle. He gets angry. He berates people who disagree with him. And in season 3 of The West Wing, there’s a scene, an episode, where a leak has occurred. And it’s going out to the press. And it’s going to be very embarrassing. And the leak came from the communications team, the people under Tobey Ziegler. And so Tobey calls all his writing staff to him. And they’re sitting in a room. And he’s about to confront them. And the television camera pans to the young writers. And they’re nervous. They’re scared. They’re ready to be berated by their director. And it turns to Tobey. And he looks up and very calmly says, “We’re a group. We’re a team. We win together. We lose together. We celebrate and mourn together. And defeats are softened and victories sweetened because we did them together. An item will appear in the paper tomorrow. And it’ll be embarrassing to me and embarrassing to the president. I’m not going to have a witch hunt. I’m not going to huff and puff. I’m not going to take anyone’s head off. I’m simply going to say this. You’re my guys. And I’m yours. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

I love this scene because this man who is oftentimes out on his own, oftentimes doing whatever he wants to do, oftentimes full of anger, sees people in front of him. And he says, “You are my people. We are together. Then no matter what you have done or what you will do, I am with you and you are with me. You’re my people.” I love that. I love that. You’re my people.

His People

That is basically what Paul has been saying throughout Colossians, right? We’ve heard it time and again, right? He talked early on about how we are united to Jesus, that his death and resurrection have been applied to us. So what is true of him is true of us. But then he went on and said, because we’re united to Christ, we’re united to one another. We’re united together. He has been saying to the Colossians, you are my people. And he’s saying it one more time in this passage. He’s saying it one more time. These are his people, not just the Colossians, but those who are laboring with him, who are working hard for the advancement of the gospel. There’s a lot going on at the end of this letter that we don’t know anything about. There are names that are unfamiliar, backgrounds that are lost to us. But what is clear when we read these few verses is that when Paul talks about the Colossians and he talks about the people that are with him, he has deep affection for them. Deep affection because they’re his people.

Did you see the language Paul used? Three times he uses the word beloved. Tychicus and Onesimus, they’re beloved brothers. Luke is the beloved physician. They’re beloved by Paul. He has deep affection for them. And he has affection for them, but not just this warm affirmation, but he also commends them for their labors, for their work. Did you see what he said? Tychicus is a faithful minister. Epaphras is struggling in prayer for the Colossian church. Nympha, she has opened her home for the church to meet there. She is practicing hospitality. You see, Paul looks at them and he sees the blessing that they are, not just to him, but to the church broadly. He sees the blessing. He affirms who they are, how they labor and give of themselves. They are his people.

But really, this affection that Paul has for them, this appreciation, this affirmation, it’s not because they simply have affinity for one another. It’s not simply because they’re laboring in the same place or for the same mission or for the same purpose. No. Ultimately, Paul has this affection for them because they’re not just his people, but more importantly, they’re God’s people. Paul’s appreciation for them is birthed out of the fact that they are part of the family of God. We know that because he calls them brother. He’s calling them sisters, right? There is a bond that is deeper than affinity, that is greater than appreciation. You see, Paul is telling us that the church is the spiritual family of God. Now, that’s no something that’s new to many of us. We’ve heard that before.

Unexpected People

But what’s remarkable to me when I look at this passage is to consider who these people are, that who the people that are part of this spiritual family are is they’re the unexpected people. They’re unexpected. We can’t go through every name and, you know, talk about great detail about them because the truth is we don’t know much about them. In fact, we know almost nothing about some of them. And that’s what actually makes them so unexpected, that they’re unknown. They’re unknown. And I kind of love this. I love that the Bible is filled with names of people that the Lord knows that we don’t. That they’re unknown to us, right? They’re real people, right? Like Nympha. All we know about Nympha was she opened her home and that’s where the church met. The house church is at her house. Or Jesus, who’s called Justice. This

is the only time we hear about him. And all we know is his name was Jesus. And so not to confuse him with the Lord, they gave him a nickname. And that’s it. We don’t know what he did. We don’t know what he looked like. But his name was Jesus called Justice. And I love this because they didn’t do anything. They didn’t say anything that is remembered throughout history and yet they’re remembered here.

Now listen, I know that when we read the Bible we come across people like Paul and Peter and John or Old Testament heroes like David and Moses and Abraham and we think of their accomplishments and we read their sermons and we look at their lives and we hear of their faith and the hope that they had. And we think maybe our lives should be as remarkable as theirs. And yet, for the vast majority of the church and for the vast majority of church history, the church is filled with people like Nympha and Jesus called Justice. And people like you and me. People that people won’t remember. And that’s okay. They were people who lived simple, faithful, very normal, and very ordinary Christian lives. And there’s beauty in that. The pastor Kent Hughes, he said there is greatness in the smallest things done for Christ. The smallest things that maybe no one else sees. And that’s encouraging to me because that’s us. Most of us.

Probably all of us will be forgotten within a couple generations. But who we are and our value and our worth and our personhood, those things aren’t determined by whether we’re remembered or not by people who come after us. No, what determines our worth and our value, our personhood, is that we’re remembered by the Lord. That we are brought into his family. We hear names like Nympha and Archippus, but there are others that we’ve never heard of, right? Like the church of the Laodiceans. Paul says, go talk to them, send them the letter, make sure to read it. Who were they? I don’t know. I don’t know who they were. Like, who was their pastor? Who was the woman opening her home for them to meet? Who were the people advancing the gospel in that place? We don’t know. And that’s beautiful. Unknown people, like you and like me, but known by the Lord.

Now, that’s the first thing that makes these people unexpected, that they’re unknown. But it’s not just that they’re unknown that makes them unexpected, it’s also what we do know about them that makes them an unexpected people. Because they’re actually very different kinds of people. See, the church is made up of people that we, that the world that we would maybe never expect would be together. Do you see it as Paul names them? He says of Aristarchus, Mark, Jesus called Justice in verse 11. He says, “these are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God.” Now, when he says the men of the circumcision, he’s simply referencing, he’s meaning that they’re ethnically Jewish. And so, if these are the only ones who are ethnically Jewish, the implication is that all the other people he talks about, like Epaphras, Luke, and the others, weren’t. And yet, here they are laboring side by side. Jews and Gentiles, right? I mean, for us, like, we’ve heard that, right? We put those two words together so easily in our day. Jews and Gentiles, living together, working together, laboring together. But that was remarkable. These were people who despised one another, who didn’t talk to one another, who had different religious traditions, who hated one another. And yet, here they are, Jews and Gentiles, men and women, people of different ethnicities and different backgrounds and religious traditions together. Living in the same community, working alongside one another, calling each other brother and sister, sharing the same spiritual family name.

But it’s not just different ethnicities that are brought together, but people are reunited after difficult pasts. Did you see it in verse 10? Paul says, “Mark, the cousin of Barnabas

concerning whom you have received instructions, if he comes to you, welcome him.” Now, Mark and Barnabas, those are two people that we know something about. Because in the book of Acts, they show up. So, Mark and Barnabas, they were two of the men who were going with Paul on his missionary journeys that are depicted in Acts, right? So, Jesus, he ascends into heaven, he sends the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and the church starts to spread, and it takes off, and Paul is taking the gospel to all these places. And Barnabas and Mark were with him, until they weren’t. Because you remember, Mark went home. We don’t know why he went home. Maybe his wife was sick. Maybe he had to, like, you know, a child was acting up. We don’t know what was going on, but he went home. He departed. But then he wanted to come back. And so, Barnabas is ready to receive him. Let’s keep going. Let’s be, you know, let’s go out onto the and Paul was adamantly opposed to it.

And so, Acts tells us, but now, Paul says, “when Mark comes to you, he doesn’t say shun him.” He doesn’t say, that guy who departed from me, keep him out. He says, welcome him. Now, we don’t know what happened. We don’t know the details. We don’t know the conversation. But clearly, whatever disagreement they had, it has been resolved. That there’s been repentance, probably on Mark’s part, probably on Paul’s part, probably Barnabas, right? There’s been repentance, and there’s been forgiveness, and there’s been restoration, so that where there was once grievance, there is now welcome. In fact, Paul goes on, and he says that they have become a comfort to me. Someone that he was angry with, someone that he fled from, right now is a comfort to him. That’s beautiful. I mean, do you see what’s happening? The ethnicity, and history, and language, and tradition, and relational hardship, those things that would normally divide, those things that would keep people apart, yet here there is fellowship, and community, and belonging, because God’s grace transcends those things that would divide.

We read about this throughout the New Testament, but all we have to do is look around, and we can see this. We can see it right here, this morning, as we have people of different ethnicities, and races, people who are black, and white, Asian, and Hispanic, people from different parts of the world, from Europe, and the Middle East, and strange, and exotic places like Canada. We have different political persuasions, and different paths. We have some people who have been part of the church all their lives. They can’t remember not being in church, and we have others who just came to faith in the last few months. We have people whose histories are marked by morality, and goodness, and others whose histories are filled with hedonism. Different educations, different economic standing, different social backgrounds, all these things that would normally divide us, that would normally keep us apart, that would normally separate us, and yet here we are, worshiping people, brothers and sisters, members of the household of faith formed by the grace of God. The grace of God in Jesus, that’s what transcends differences and unites us around the Lord. And what’s amazing about this is that when this unexpected group of people are united together, it not only is evidence of God’s grace now, but it is a foretaste, it is a picture, it is a sample of God’s grace in the future, of what will be.

One theologian said that “the vocation of the church is the call to live as the small working model of the new creation.” The new creation that’s ushered in by Jesus, that is consummated when he returns. This new creation, we know what it will be marked by, no more tears, no more disease, no more death, no more division, no more anger, but we also know what else it will be marked by, that every tribe, and tongue, and people, and every person who has been transformed by the grace of God will stand together in praise of Jesus as his people, united together by God’s grace. Friends, that only happens by God’s grace. It is only his grace that we are made into this new people. Paul ends his letter, “grace be with you.”

Grace. We’ve heard about grace throughout this letter, right? Grace that transforms sinners into saints. Grace that takes people who despise one another and makes us brothers and sisters. Grace that heals past pain and does away with deep-seated grudges. Grace that takes unexpected, unknown, forgotten people, people who differ and make us God’s people. Toby told his staffers, you’re my people, but they were united around a president, around politics, around a career or job. But y’all, that kind of union is weak. It will fracture and it will fade. But the people of God, those united together because of Christ, my friends, you’re my people, and I’m yours because we are God’s people. The grace of God be with you. Amen. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you. Thank you for your Word. Thank you for your truth that unites us in grace because of our Lord Jesus. And so I pray, Father, that that is what we would look to. That we would look beyond difference. We would look beyond those things that would separate. And instead, we would cling to Christ, the one we have been united to. And we would hold fast to one another because you have united us together. You have done this in grace. And so help your church be a model before the world of what this looks like. Help us be a foretaste of that future day when every tribe and tongue and nation will stand before you and declare that you are our God and we are your people. And we pray all this in Christ’s name. And God’s people said together, Amen.

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Transcript 20261018

October 18, 2026 – Rev. Bailey Wagner

Well friends, it seems like this month has been RUF month for us because a couple weeks ago we had the RUF campus minister at Lynchburg come at Liberty, come and share with us what he’s doing and how the Lord is at work there. And this morning we have Bailey Wagner who’s with us, who is the RUF pastor at JMU. So RUF again is Reform University Fellowship. It’s our campus ministry for our denomination. As I said a couple weeks ago, we really like RUF around here. It does great work on the college campus. And so Bailey is going to come and share God’s word with us. Bailey’s been with RUF for just a few years, but this is his first time being with us at CTK. So he wanted to make sure to come and greet y’all. We support his ministry, his work, have sent students like our own Sarah Knowles and others who are involved in his ministry. And so we’re very, very thankful for RUF and for Bailey. So Bailey, welcome.

It’s good to be with y’all. Like Penny said, I’m Bailey Wagner. I have a girl’s name, so you might have been confused when you saw that in the bulletin, but don’t worry. I can’t tell you how many freshman girls text me and think that I’m a freshman girl. It’s the weirdest thing that I do. Like Penny said, I’m the RUF campus minister at JMU, the greatest university in Virginia. If you disagree with me, we can talk about that later in the Narthex or whatever you call that area. But I’m really glad to be here. My role as a campus minister is to reach and equip students with the good news, to reach them with the good news of God’s grace and to equip them for a lifetime of loving and serving the local church. And one of my favorite ways to serve the local church is to be in places like this and to share God’s Word. And as we do that, I want to invite you to turn to the book of Ephesians. It’s page 976 and 977 in your Pew Bible, also on the screen. And I want to invite you to listen. This is the Word of the Living God, Ephesians 2:11-22:

“Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” (ESV)

This is the word of the Lord. And as God’s word, we should go to him and ask him to be with us as we consider it. So pray with me.

God, we come before you thankful that you are not a distant God, but you’re a God who is personal and so personal that you give us your word, that you’ve given us your word to direct us how we might glorify and enjoy you. And Lord, if we’re honest, we need you to meet us here. If we are to gain anything from the reading or the preaching of your word, we need you, Holy Spirit, to come and fill us and work in us. Lord, if we are honest, we all come here in a variety of places. Some of us wrestled children in the minivans and were tired and it felt like a battle just to get here. For others of us, we’ve had too much coffee and we’re so excited and we’re almost jittery and we need calm. Wherever we’re at, Lord, would you meet us? Would you give us what we need? Open our eyes, unclog our ears, so that we this morning might see the Lord Jesus as more good, more beautiful, and more true. And so we pray it all in his name. Amen.

It’s a very human thing that we do to try to put ourselves in groups and find things that divide us from other people. And I learned this especially the hard way my first semester at JMU. It was the first nice day. I started in January of 2024. It was maybe the first nice day of the spring. My three-year-old at the time was maybe six or seven months old and I said, you know what, I’m going to take the three-year-old for a walk and give my wife a little break. So the problem was I was wearing a t-shirt that was of my alma mater. And my alma mater, Appalachian State, is actually now a rival of JMU. And I was wearing the most obnoxiously gold Appalachian State shirt I owned. And I said, I’ll walk around town. This is the friendly city. That’s what they call Harrisonburg after all. And what I received from the members and the township of Harrisonburg was not friendliness wearing enemy colors. I got dirty looks. I got comments. And what I learned was I can’t wear Appalachian State stuff unless I’m like cutting my grass and no one sees me. Right? We all, it’s just this very human thing that we all want to find ways to look at other groups of people, people that we might even be close with, and say, I know better, I do better, I am better than another group of people.

This morning, we’re looking at this dynamic happening in the church of Ephesus. Paul is addressing a church where division is present, where there are rules in place that are meant to separate people. And Paul is giving this church this beautiful picture that Jesus has come not to divide his people, but actually to unite them, to bring them together. The big picture I want you to see with me this morning is that the good news of God’s grace, the gospel, it breaks down our barriers. It doesn’t cause us to build barriers. It actually causes them to be broken down. And we’re going to see this in three ways. So if you take notes, this is in the bulletin, this is for you. Three things, that Jesus brings hope, Jesus brings unity, and then lastly, Jesus brings belonging. So hope, unity, belonging. Let’s hop right in.

Jesus Brings Hope

First, hope, that Jesus brings hope where none had been before. In the church in Ephesus, there are two distinct groups of people. You might have caught on to this in the reading. There’s Jewish people and then there’s Gentiles. Jewish people are Abraham’s children. That’s to say that they were God’s Old Testament people, that these were people who God had made promises to, saying, I will be your God and you will be my people. And they had a long history of being God’s people. They had hope in a coming Messiah. They had hope in the promises of God. The other group in this church, the Gentiles, are kind of the exact opposite. Essentially, what it means to be Gentile is just to be not Jewish. And these Gentile Christians, what Paul is showing them is that apart from Christ, before the coming of Christ, they had no promises that they were heirs to. They had no hope. They had no relationship with God. Paul

says it like this in verse 12, “remember that you at that time were separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world.” Paul telling this group essentially on their own, they had no hope. And Paul’s not trying to beat them up here, but if you look at verse 13, there’s really good news: “But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” I want you to see what’s going on here with me. Jesus has taken these people who were far off, and by his blood brought them near. That he’s taken people who did not have God’s promises, and he has made them heirs to God’s promises. He’s taken people who had no hope outside of themselves, and what has he given them? Hope.

This is all true of these people, because Jesus has come to rescue sinners like them and like us. And what Paul is saying is that it’s Jesus’s blood, Jesus’s work on the cross that has brought them near. It’s Jesus and his sacrifice has washed away their sins, and through faith made them children of God. And what I want you to see as we think about that is that Jesus gives us what we lack. On our own, our outlook is the same as what we’re reading in Ephesians, that in our sin we are hopeless, we are helpless, we are alienated and strangers to God. But by grace, Jesus moves towards us in our hopelessness to give us what we need. And what we need, what Jesus gives us, is himself. What we need is for Jesus to be with us, to move towards us, to forgive us, even when it’s the last thing that we deserve. And Jesus sees us dead in our sins, hopeless on our own, and he moves towards us to forgive us, to bring us near, to secure our way to God. And that’s a truth that will not change, regardless of our sin and our failures, regardless of our ancestry, regardless of how we feel. That Jesus moves towards you, he moves towards me, and he gives us hope.

Fun fact about me, I was in middle school at one point in my life. I haven’t always been a bald 30-year-old. Before I went to middle school, I grew up out in the country in North Carolina and kind of had a middle school that was kind of scary. Maybe you went to middle school like that, maybe you’re in a middle school like that. The summer before middle school started, thinking about what was coming ahead of me, I was a nervous wreck. Looking back on it now, it was almost like I was being sentenced to prison, which middle schoolers here, it’s not that bad. I survived. But I was so afraid of going to middle school. I felt helpless. I felt hopeless. And I don’t think I told anyone that I was feeling this, but I had a grandpa, a peepaw, as we called him where I’m from, who knew what I was struggling with. And the night before sixth grade, this is in the days of landlines, my grandpa called our house and asked to speak to me. And he gave me some advice about facing my fears, and I don’t really remember what he said. But then what I do remember is that he said, “Bailey, I love you. You’re going to be okay. And no matter what, I’m here and I’m with you.” And hearing him say that gave me hope.

Because I knew no matter how bad middle school was, no matter if I got beat up or didn’t make the basketball team, you know, which all happened, well, the beating up maybe not as much, but just a little bit. Knowing that no matter what I faced, that he was with me gave me hope that at the end of the day I could endure what was coming to me, that the bad things that I was afraid of weren’t going to be as bad as I thought because my grandpa loved me, that I wasn’t alone. And what Paul is saying to these Gentile Christians is that you are not alone, that Jesus has come to rescue you. Jesus has come and brought you near, and you have a great and sure hope in that truth. And I think as we think about this, the question we should probably be asking ourselves is how does Jesus meet us in our hopelessness right now? What are the things that we feel like we have no hope in, and how is Jesus entering into that with us? Maybe you’re here today, and the thing that feels the most hopeless for you is suffering.

What’s true of all of us is we either have experienced suffering, we’re experiencing it right now, we will experience it. And when we experience suffering, the word we could say is it feels hopeless. We wonder if God is present at all, if he’s doing anything. But the way Jesus interacts with us in our suffering is he points us to the cross. Our hope is in the fact that we have a Savior who is not distant from suffering, but a Savior who he himself suffered. He knows what it means to suffer physically, emotionally. We can actually look to the cross and see this awful picture of the worst thing that’s happened in human history, the innocent man dying on the cross as the place where God is most at work. God’s greatest redemptive act is the cross, and we can look at that and say, God is at work. God is with me in my suffering. Not only is he with us, but Jesus rose from the dead, defeating sin and death once and for all, and he promises to return, to deal the final blow, to end it once and for all. But Jesus is a Savior who suffered, and one day he will end the suffering. He’ll wipe away the tears from our eyes.

Maybe the thing you experience right now is just deep loneliness. It’s so lonely, it’s excruciating. All you want is for someone to see you. Maybe, you know, you talk to three- year-olds all day. Maybe your kids just moved out of the house. You’re empty nesters for the first time. You don’t know what to do with yourself, and all you want is a friend or a spouse or someone just to move towards you. But friends, what I want you to hear is that Jesus is the one who sees you and moves towards you, that he moves towards you and actually, by faith, brings you into a community to be known and to be loved. Maybe the thing that feels hopeless is you’re just exhausted. The grind is never slowing down. Work feels like it always is picking up. It’s killing you, but Jesus calls you to himself, and he says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. What I want you to hear, friends, is that Jesus has come to give hope to the hopeless.

Jesus Brings Unity

So the next thing I want us to consider, this is our next point, is that Jesus brings unity to his people, that Jesus brings unity, that Jesus tears down the things that keep us divided. The Christians in Ephesus that were Jewish and Gentile, they were different, but they weren’t just different. Jewish people at this time wouldn’t have associated with Gentiles because they would have seen them as unclean. In some ways, these two groups would be more likely to actually be at odds with each other than anything else. The Jewish people had this identity that they were set apart from the rest of the world, and really what this is connected to would be the ceremonial law. We kind of get a picture of this in verse 11 when Paul says, “you who are called the uncircumcision by the circumcision.” These Jewish Christians would have likely demanded that the Gentiles adhere to specific rules to be part of the church, and their performance would have dictated whether they were in or not, or whether they were maybe fully in or not is another way to put that. But Paul is saying to these Christians that Jesus has come to break down the barriers that stand between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. And the question is, well, how does Jesus do that? And Paul gives us the answer in verses 14 through 18. He first says that Jesus is our peace, and through his life and death that we now have peace with God, and therefore we also have peace with one another. That Jesus then has accomplished that peace by what Paul says is abolishing the law, the law that divided these Christians. And abolishing the law, what that means is there is no performance, no outward signs you have to do to be part of God’s family. What he’s saying is that your place in the church is not earned.

Lastly, Paul says that Jesus kills the hostility, that as he’s rescued a people to be reconciled to God, he’s gathered them into one body, killing the hostility between us. What we’re seeing is

that Jesus rescues a people from their sin, people from every tribe, every tongue, every nation, people with real cultural differences, and he brings them together. That Jesus creates a community where your place isn’t earned by following a law or following a rule, but it’s given by grace. If we can be honest, it’s easy to read this and say, you know, bless their hearts in the first century. We don’t do this kind of thing anymore. But if we’re honest, division amongst Christians is not just a first century thing, it’s a Christian thing. Because we’re sinners, it’s easy to make a church, it’s easy to make any Christian community a place where you have to perform to be accepted. It’s easy to make any church or any Christian community a place where you have to earn your place. Maybe you have experienced something like this. This is kind of what that looks like, and I’m just going to say this is bad. I’m not saying we should do these things. But maybe you’ve been a part of a Christian group and they say, “oh, do you drink alcohol even in moderation? Well, we don’t do that here, so you have to stop that completely or you have to leave.” Maybe you’ve been in places where you say, “what? You let your children participate in Halloween or watch Harry Potter” or something like that? “No, we don’t do that here. You can’t join if you do that.”

Those are kind of silly examples, but often we do this. And when we do these things, when we put rules in place to say this is how you’re either in or out, what we’re ultimately saying is that we don’t believe that Jesus has moved towards us first and by grace rescued us. We’re actually saying that we’ve earned our place and we expect others to earn their place as well. I think the best example of this that we get culturally is the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, if you’re not familiar. There’s been a Netflix documentary about the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, and it’s really fascinating because to become a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, you, one, have to be a female, so they wouldn’t let me in, of course. But more than that, you have to be a great dancer. You have to be fit. You have to be pretty. And you have to have like an “it factor” that is in nowhere written down. It’s just kind of a subjective thing. And as you watch this series, you will follow lots of young women who say, I want to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, and they’re amazing dancers, they’re beautiful, and they try to get into this thing, but they have to earn their place, but they also have to earn their keep. And all this stems from the fact that 30 years ago, the leaders who now run this organization earned their spot, and they feel like they have to uphold the standards. They have to make subjective rules that these girls have to abide by. They have to create a hard barrier between in and out. And as you can imagine, this is a documentary, when you watch this happen, it’s a community, really, that’s riddled with anxiety of people asking the questions, have I done enough? Am I good enough? Am I going to get kicked out because I haven’t done enough? And it’s exhausting.

Paul is saying in our passage that Jesus is the one who has earned everything you need in order to be accepted by God, in order to be made right with God, and he gives it to you as a gift of grace. And what that means is you don’t have to earn your place in God’s family. You don’t have to earn your keep. That Jesus has accomplished it all. He’s broken the barriers, and he’s made his people into one body. And I think the question we have to ask ourselves then are what are the barriers that we have created to keep others out? What are the things that we say, I have earned this, and others have to earn it in order to be a part of a church or a community group or any kind of gathering of Christians? Maybe it’s theological. You say, “we have hard lines in the sand, and you can’t disagree with me on secondary issues,” right? We all want to acknowledge that there are real theological disagreements that we can say you are not a Christian if you don’t believe in the Trinity, perhaps. But on how we understand baptism, on how we understand other secondary issues, is that a rule that we use to keep people out? Maybe the thing that you want to use to keep people out is to say, “I’m taking

holiness seriously, and I know who is a bigger sinner than me. They don’t take holiness seriously. They have no right to be where I am.” But when we make barriers like these, and you could probably imagine more, what we’re saying is we believe that I’ve earned my place and someone else has too. But what I want you to hear is that Jesus has come to rescue sinners by grace, and that’s true of you. That’s true of every person that has faith in Jesus, no matter who they are. You’ve been accepted by grace, and the grace that we receive, it doesn’t divide us. It actually brings us together. It brings unity. So, so far we’ve seen that Jesus brings hope, that Jesus brings unity, but the last thing I want us to look at is to see that Jesus brings belonging. He brings belonging to his people.

Jesus Brings Belonging

That’s our last point, that Jesus takes strangers and aliens and gives them a place to belong. Look at verses 19- 22. I’ll read this real quick: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” There’s a lot we could say here, but the thing I want to draw your attention to is this language about the temple. In the Old Testament, the tabernacle and later the temple was the place on earth where God’s presence dwelt. It was the place where Jewish people worshiped. And thinking about these Gentile Christians and using this temple language, when we think about the temple, Gentiles actually had very, very limited access to the temple because they weren’t Jewish and they would have been considered unclean. So there was an outer court of the temple that the Gentiles were allowed into, but they weren’t allowed to go in any further. And so what Paul is telling these Christians, who because of their ethnicity were not allowed into the temple, what he’s telling them is that through Jesus they are joined together and they are the temple. That the place where God dwells isn’t a building, but it’s in them by his Spirit. That they are so loved and accepted by God through Christ that God now dwells in them. Where they weren’t allowed to get close to God’s presence at all, God now dwells in them.

And I just want you to imagine, like put yourself in the shoes of a first century Gentile. Imagine how wild that would be to hear that, that you who were not allowed into the temple are now the very place where God dwells. What Paul is doing as he’s saying this, is he’s making it abundantly clear that these people who were once considered outsiders are now insiders because of what Jesus has done. They were far off, but Jesus has brought them near, so near that God by his Spirit dwells in them, that they have been gathered into the household of God. And this is meant to be a comfort for them. It’s a comfort to people who are asking the question, “am I really in? Does God really love me or am I excluded because of my ethnicity?” It’s a comfort for people asking the question, do I belong? What’s true of all people is we all want to belong to something, and we will do anything we can to kind of make that happen.

One of the interesting things about being an RUF campus minister is I watch thousands of freshmen land at JMU every year, and they quickly say, “I have to find a place to belong or else I’m not going to survive,” and they will do anything to make it happen. We do the same thing. We dress a certain way to be accepted by a certain crowd. We act a certain way. We do certain things all so we can belong. But when belonging is something that we earn, it either builds up our pride. We say, “look at me. I’ve earned my place in this community.” Or we can’t do it. We don’t get accepted like we think we should, and it leads us to despair. I was

raised in a church that had a Christian school, and I did not go to the Christian school. I went to public school. And for as long as I can remember, that made me an outsider in this community that I was a part of. In Sunday school or later youth group, I felt like everyone knew more about the Bible than me because they learned about the Bible in school, and when you go to public school in North Carolina, you don’t learn about the Bible. Fun fact. The church always felt like a place I would never belong. I was too behind. I was too secular. I didn’t have the means to go to this public school.

Adults literally pitied me my whole life because I didn’t go to the right school, and I thought that would be true for me for a lifetime of being a Christian. Maybe you’re here today, and you feel something similar. You’re considering the claims of Christianity, and you’re wondering, is the church a place I can actually fit in? Maybe you’ve recently come to faith, and you just feel like you’re behind, and you’re wondering if you’ll ever stop feeling that. What I want you to see is what Paul is telling the church in Ephesus. What he’s telling them is also true of you. It’s true of all Christians that God has loved you first, that he has sent his Son to rescue you. He sent his Spirit to live in you, and it’s not because of what you know. It’s not because of what you’ve done. It’s not because of who you are. It’s a free gift. It’s all grace, and what that means is you belong to Jesus, to his people, in the family of God, no matter what, all because of faith, all by grace. And if that were really true, which it is, but if we really believe that, what would that do to us?

Well, one, I think it would give us confidence that no matter what God has said, you are mine. You are my treasured possession, and that’s not changing. And if that’s not changing, if our identity is so sure in who God says we are, then you can hear no to a promotion and weather it. You can be rejected from grad school. Someone can say no to a second date and it not ruin you, because you know that you’ll never lose your spot in God’s family. So it will give you confidence. I also think it would give us courage, right, that if our identity is in who God says we are, we can show up into spaces that we’re afraid of. We can go talk to people who are wildly different than us. Why? Because what God has said about you is most foundationally true, that a rejection won’t matter.

Lastly, I think it means that we can welcome others into a community because we can look at a space like the church and bring people in because you know that their spot, like yours, isn’t earned. And you can just bring people to say, come and hear this good news, come and rest in the finished work of Jesus with us. So if you hear anything this morning, we’ll land the plan on this. So if you fell asleep, wake back up. We’ll be done in two minutes. Here’s what I want you to hear, that God’s love for you, it doesn’t cause you to move away from others. It doesn’t cause us as a community to build barriers that divide ourselves. It doesn’t cause us to find ways for others to earn their place. It actually does the opposite. That Jesus came to earth, lived the life we should live, died the death of a criminal in our place, so sinners like you and I can be forgiven, so we can be redeemed, so we can be renewed, even though it’s the last thing we deserve because of our sin. And what Jesus has done for us is He tears down the walls that divide. Jesus comes and gives us hope where we had none before, right? He finds people who are far off and gives them a place to belong. And my encouragement to you is to trust that Jesus has done that for you, maybe even trust it for the first time, and trust that Jesus is doing that work in you by His Spirit right now. Let that be the thing that moves you towards people who you disagree with. Let the truth that Jesus hasn’t made you earn your spot be the thing that causes you to welcome others in. Let the reality of what Jesus has done give you the deep sense that He loves you and is for you. And my encouragement to you is to rest in that because it’s true, and it’s true for you. So, let’s pray.

God, thank You for the truth that You have sent Your Son to live in our place, to die in our place, to be raised from the dead, so that those who are far off, sinners like me and like our friends here, can all be brought near, so strangers and aliens can belong, so the hopeless can have a great and everlasting hope in a Savior. Lord, help us believe that. Drive that truth deep in our hearts, so we might go from this place loving You more, loving one another more, and loving this city more. So, we pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

The post Ephesians 2:11-22: Jesus Brings His People Together  appeared first on Christ the King Presbyterian Church.

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Rev. John Pennylegion – October 11, 2026

Good morning, welcome to Christ the King. My name is Penny, and I’m the senior pastor here. And friends, it is good to be with you. If you are a guest or visitor, we’re glad that you would join us this morning, that we can gather together and to worship and to sing and to come to God’s word. And if we haven’t had the opportunity to meet, I would love to meet you. I’m usually in the back there after the service. I’d love to greet you because we are glad that you would join us this morning. And this morning, we’re continuing in our series in the book of Colossians. We’re nearing the end. We’re moving into chapter four this morning, and there are only four chapters. So we have this morning and then one more sermon in the book of Colossians. And then after Colossians, we’re going to spend a few weeks in the minor prophet Zephaniah. So probably no one had a quiet time this morning in the book of Zephaniah. But we’re going to spend a few weeks in that before we move into the season of Advent. So if you like to plan, if you like to look ahead, that’s what you can be expecting.

But this morning, we’re in the beginning of Colossians 4. And one of the things as we’re moving into that I thought would be helpful is to just remind us of where we’ve been. In the very first chapter early on in the book of Colossians, we’re told that Jesus is the one who is preeminent over all things. That in all things, Jesus is the king. He is the ruler. He rules over our lives. He rules over this world. He rules over you and me. He is the preeminent one. Now, what’s amazing about that is that Jesus isn’t simply this preeminent one who is far off from us. But very quickly after hearing about his preeminence, we heard about how Jesus takes all that he has done, his righteous works, his work on the cross, his death and resurrection, he takes all that he has done and he applies it to his people, to you and to me. So you remember, we are united to Christ, right? So what is true of Jesus is true of us. I mean, that’s remarkable to think about. His death and resurrection, Paul says, is ours. So that he can say that we have died with Christ and risen with him. Now, coming out of that discussion about our union with Christ, Paul then spent pretty much an entire chapter telling us how we respond by putting off the old and putting on the new, of fleeing from vice and fleeing to virtue. That was chapter 3. And now as we come into chapter 4, we have this last encouragement, this final exhortation of dependence. So let’s read Colossians 4, beginning in verse 2. Paul writes,

“Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. 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—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” (ESV)

Friends, this is the word of the Lord. Let me pray for us.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that as we come to your word, you meet with us, that you are at work in our midst. And so we ask, Father, that you would use your spirit to open our eyes and soften our hearts, and that you would give us understanding. I pray, Father, that the words that are spoken would be honoring to you, and that our minds as we think upon them, our hearts as we take them in, that our posture would be glorifying to you. Because, Father, everything we do, we want to honor you. We pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.

So last night, as Cole and I were watching the baseball game, like I’m sure all of you were, a commercial came on, which, you know, commercials come on. And Cole did what everyone else in my family does every time a commercial comes on. They mute it. They turn it off. They don’t want to listen to it. They don’t want to pay attention, right? Everybody grabs their phones. We check our email. We check, you know, whatever else we might be checking, but we’re not going to watch or listen to a commercial. And I commented to Cole that I actually like watching commercials. I like them. Not the ones that are, like, filled with, you know, medical stuff and all that. I know that’s important. But I like the other commercials. And I like commercials because they give us a window into our world. You know, marketers, these artists, really, because that’s kind of what they are, they’re artists, they have great insight into what makes you and me tick. They have these amazing way of showing us our desires, right? What is below the surface and what motivates us. That’s what commercials are seeking to do. They’re not just selling us a product, but they’re connecting our hearts, our minds, our desires with their very product. They’re trying to sell us on that. They’re understanding our condition.

And one of the commercials that I one thousand percent resonate with is the commercials for the Home Depot. Because you have all these pictures, right, of men and women, and they’re walking around the Home Depot, and they’re finding all the things that they need. And then we see them in their homes, right? They’re planting flowers, and they’re cutting the grass, and they’re painting walls, and they’re fixing problems in their homes, and they’re making their houses and homes a little bit better and a little bit more beautiful. And I want to run out and buy the paint and get that new lawnmower, right? Because I resonate with that line that is said at the end of every Home Depot commercial, that tagline, “how doers get more done.” And in my heart, I scream AMEN! Let’s get doing. Now, I imagine that many of you actually resonate with that as well. Maybe not because you’re a DIYer. Maybe, you know, you don’t like doing things at home. Maybe you’re not handy. Maybe you hate cutting the grass, right? You will gladly pay someone to do that for you. So maybe it’s not that way about doing things, but you’re doers as well. I know most of you, this is who you are. This is who I am. We want to get doing things, right? Maybe we want to get things done at work, or in the classroom, or in our homes, right? We’re the kind of people that sees our responsibilities not so much as burdens, but as opportunities to get doing. And y’all are pretty successful at this, right? Like, we’re pretty good doers.

Depending on God through Prayer

And because we’re pretty good at doing things, it’s easy to take this mentality and apply it to all various forms of life, right? All spheres of life, including our religious life. So let’s get doing Christianity. And there is a lot to do, isn’t there? I mean, I just reminded us of chapter three of Colossians, and all that we’re told to do, right? Don’t pursue vice. Do put on virtue. Don’t despise your household. Do love one another. There are lots to do. And yet here, as Paul is nearing the end of his letter, for all the dues, he says, “depend.” Depend. Depend on God through prayer. Did you see our passage began in verse 2? “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” So Paul knows what he’s written.

He knows what we have heard. Live in a manner worthy of the gospel. He’s told us what our families are to look like, what our church community, how we’re to live together, how we’re supposed to reflect the gospel. And so he knows it would be easy for us to think, Okay, let’s form a committee, let’s make a plan, and let’s get doing. But before we can run out, before we get over our skis, Paul says, stop and pray. Pray. Now, let’s be honest. Sometimes it’s hard for us to pray because prayer doesn’t feel like we’re doing anything, right? I know we’re in church. You’re not supposed to say that. It’s a safe place. It’s okay. You can acknowledge it. Prayer doesn’t feel like we’re doing anything, right? When we’re in our office, when we’re in the car, when we’re in our bed, and when we’re at church, we close our eyes. Don’t close your eyes while you’re driving. It’s okay to have your eyes open while you pray. But we close our eyes, we bow our heads, and we talk to God, but God’s not visible. And we don’t hear his voice audibly speaking back to us. And so it could feel like we’re not really doing anything at all. We have nothing to show for it. And that’s hard for some of us, right?

Like when we come home at the end of the day and we see our spouse and they ask, “well, what did you do today?” If you said, “well, not really anything.” They’d be like, “why did you go to work? What are you being paid for,” right? Or if we just said, “well, you know, I spent the day in prayer.” They might go, “well, that sounds spiritual, but don’t you have work to do?” We want to have something to show for our day, right? Don’t we? And yet prayer, we can’t just check it off. We can’t just show people this is what I did. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s part of the point. Because when we pray in our prayers, we are taking our days off ourselves. We’re turning our attention away from all the things that we do. And we’re turning independence to the Lord. Paul says, “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” Being watchful. What are we watching for?

Well, there’s a little bit of debate about this among scholars. Some scholars think that we’re watching for the coming of the Lord in our prayers. And that would make sense because Paul talked about the coming of the Lord earlier in Colossians. Others think that this is hearkening back to when Jesus told his disciples, “Watch and pray.” You remember they were in the garden and Jesus was about to be arrested. And so he goes off into the garden with his disciples and he leaves them. He goes further in and he prays and he comes back and he finds them. What are they doing? Not praying, sleeping. And so he wakes them up and he says, “Watch and pray.” Watch and pray, right? That temptation wouldn’t take over because the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And so some people think watch is hearkening back to that. Be on guard against temptation. That’s what that word can also mean. Others, one other theologian, he commented that this could be connected with thanksgiving. And so we have this like threefold rhythm of prayer, of intercession, right? Pray, of watching for God to answer and then being thankful when the answer comes. And so I actually think it could be any of these things, honestly, depending on the circumstance, depending on the situation, depending on what we’re actually praying for.

But regardless, the point is, is that in prayer, we are recognizing our absolute complete 100% need of the Lord. And so we pray, acknowledging we can’t do a thing without him. And Paul recognizes this, not just for the Colossians, but Paul recognizes this for himself because look in verse 3, he’s just said to the Colossians, y’all pray. But now he says, verse 3, “pray also for us.” Now look, of all the people, the most skilled, the most talented, the most equipped, the most intelligent, we would, you know, we’d have to say Paul ranks pretty high, right? You know, there’s like Jesus, and then like everybody else is like way down here, but Paul’s probably on the top of the way down here, right? And so we would think that, you know, maybe he doesn’t need to depend. And yet he knows, he knows very well that he needs God’s help, that he doesn’t need to depend on himself, but he depends on the Lord. And so we depend in prayer, knowing that God loves us, knowing that God hears us, right? Psalm 116 says that the Lord inclines his ear to us. 1 John 5 tells us if we ask anything in the name of Jesus, our Father hears us.

Depending on God in the World

And so we cry out, we cry out for ourselves, and we cry out for others. We depend upon God through prayer, but we also depend on God as we live in the world. You see, what Paul asks for is that the Lord, as Paul is living in the world, that the Lord would open a door, and that for his speech to be gracious. You see that? He asked for God to open a door, right? That a doorway would be open for the gospel to go forward. A friend of mine, I heard him once say that this is a good word for believers because we need to look for God to open the door and not try to kick it down ourselves. And I resonated with that because I want things done on my timeline and in my ways, and I want the Lord to work in the people I want him to work with and in. But Paul is simply asking the Lord to open a door. He doesn’t say which door. He doesn’t say his cell door. He just says open a door. You see, it’s not our job to force the door open or to make the opportunity ourselves. That’s the Lord’s work, his job. Now, we simply look for the open door and walk through it.

And so we don’t just ask for an open door, but we ask the Lord to open our eyes to see it, to walk through, to have the courage to do so. We ask God for opportunities to take God’s word into the places where God is working. That’s what Paul’s request was. Now, Paul’s request, it probably doesn’t seem odd to us until we maybe consider his circumstance because you remember where Paul is? He is in jail because of sharing the gospel, because of this message. He is in prison. And so if there was ever a person or a situation that could get a pass on sharing the gospel, wouldn’t we think it’d be Paul right now? And yet his chains are not a reason for him to stop sharing. No, you see, he sees this situation and all situations as opportunities for the gospel. Pray. Open doors. God, reveal where you are leading. Reveal where you are working and lead us to where you’re moving. And when you do, give us words of grace that communicate truth. That’s what Paul says, right? He prays for an open door. And then verse 4, “that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.” This is a very simple and profound prayer: Let my words be clear. I imagine that some of you wish I prayed that more frequently on Sunday mornings, Lord, make my words clear. But really, like, every Presbyterian should pray this because, right, we’re the people who, when a five-cent word is sufficient, we wouldn’t use it because we’ve got a 500 word in our pocket. But seriously, this is what we want, isn’t it? To speak the truths of God’s grace, his glory, his goodness, in a way that those who need to hear it and those who hear our words can understand it.

I remember when I was living in St. Louis, I was talking to my neighbor who had a garden. He just started a garden. He also had chickens, which was very fun. He also had a beehive, which was really fun. But we’re talking about his garden because, y’all know, I like to garden. And so we’re talking about and he’s talking about how much he loves being in it and it’s therapeutic and he takes great joy in it. And I am totally resonating with this, right? Because I love getting my hands dirty and planting seeds and seeing it grow and eating from the fruit of my labors, right? It’s wonderful. It’s glorious. It’s beautiful. And so as I’m talking and I’m resonating with him and connecting with him, I go, “yes, it’s almost Edenic.” Now, y’all know me. I’m a pastor and we’re in church. And so maybe you hear Edenic, E-D-E-N-I-C, right? Edenic, like Eden, right? Regardless, you know what I’m talking about. So that place, Eden, right? You would be able to figure it out from context. However, my neighbor, my friend who heard me call the garden Edenic, he looks at me as though I was speaking Martian. I thought I was being wise, philosophical, theological, maybe a little esoteric, right? And yet he had no idea what I was talking about. I left him confused because I defaulted to churchy language. See, I wasn’t thinking about him. I wasn’t thinking about the person I was speaking to or our shared vocabulary or our lack of a shared vocabulary. And that left him confused. I could have benefited from this prayer, “Lord, make my words clear.”

But that’s not just Paul’s prayer for himself. It’s later what he says about the Colossians, to the Colossians, “let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Now, in speaking this way before the world, we’re embodying what Paul said, walking wisdom toward outsiders. Right now, outsiders, he’s not speaking disparagingly about anyone. He’s simply referring to those outside the church. And he’s saying we need to live wisely before them. And this wise living is reflected in the words that we use, in how we speak, that we are gracious and seasoned with salt. Now, this challenges, I think, what our perspective often is when we think about talking with non-Christians. Because it’s very easy for us to think that when we engage with a non-believer, that we need to make sure to tell them all the ways that they’re wrong. And we need to make sure that we are ready to destroy and dismantle any one of their arguments. And we need to make sure that they are clear that we, what we are against. Now, for sure, we should not shy away from the truth. And sometimes the truth can be hard to hear, but we don’t have to be punks about it.

I mean, do you remember the Apostle Paul in Acts 17? He enters into the city of Athens, and he walks through the marketplace. And what does he see? He sees all the idols, right? He sees all the idols. And if you’ve read the New Testament, you’re familiar with the writings of Paul, you know Paul was not a fan of idols. And so, when he has an opportunity to talk to the people of Athens, do you remember what he said about these idols? Are you insane? Are you worshiping things made with human hands, things made of stone, of wood, of rock? What is wrong with you? He didn’t say any of those things. No, you remember what he said? He said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious, idolatry, false worship. You are very religious. For I passed along and observed the objects of your worship. I found also an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God, would therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” And then he went and told them about Jesus. He then went and shared with them about Christ and how he was resurrected from the dead. He told them about the Lord, about his death and resurrection. He was calling them to repentance. He didn’t mock them. He didn’t belittle them. He didn’t intellectually bully them or shame them. He was gracious with his speech and pointed them to the gospel. Let your speech be gracious, full of salt.

Paul here isn’t simply calling for civility in our speech, but he’s saying this is how we should respond to a world with good news. This is how we should respond to the world with good news. Good news that grace has come, that Jesus has died, that forgiveness is ours. I mean, that is news that should bring smiles to our faces and joy to our heart, not anger and frustration. And that’s what we should be telling our neighbors. That’s what we should be bringing to the world. Speaking graciously. Full of joy. And y’all, the truth is, is we need the Lord’s help to do this. Because we’re sometimes not going to know how to respond. And we’re not going to know what to say. And we’re not sure if the Lord opened the door or not. And so we pray. We pray for ourselves. And we pray for one another. Pray for me. Just this past week, I had a conversation with a woman is a self-described pagan. I didn’t know what she meant. And so I asked, “When you say pagan, what do you mean?” And she said that she is a worshiper of the ancient Nordic gods. And I have to tell you, that is a new one for me. And I had no idea what to say to her. I wasn’t sure how to respond. But I knew that if I would have responded with shock, if I would have kind of smirked, if I would have nervously laughed, I’d probably never talk to her again about this. I didn’t know what to say. I was caught off guard. So pray for me. Pray for one another. Because I imagine I’m not the only one who’s been in a situation like that. It might not be about some religion that we are unfamiliar with. It might just be the coworker that’s standing before us, and we have no idea what to say. It might be our neighbor who is talking about a garden, and we’re not sure how to turn it to the gospel. It might be someone in our class, wherever we might be. I imagine many of us have been in that situation where we’re not sure. Should we speak or be quiet? What should we say in that moment? How is it that we walk in wisdom before others? How is it that I should speak graciously and clearly right now? And so, pray for me. And I’ll pray for you. And we’ll pray for one another, knowing that we don’t kick down the door, but it’s the Lord who opens the doors. And knowing there is the Lord who is at work. And knowing there is the Lord that we depend upon. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we do thank you that you have given your Son, and this is good news. Good news for those who are in need of grace and mercy, of forgiveness and love. And so, Father, we pray that you would show us where it is that this news is needed. We ask, Father, that you would open doors and give us eyes to see those open doors, and that you would lead us through them so that we would be able to speak, speak clearly, that we would know when to be silent and to ask questions, that we would know where it is that you are leading. And we ask that you would use us. Use us to proclaim your truth, to tell of it to our neighbors, to the world. Father, we ask that you would help us to depend upon you. And we pray all this in the name of Christ and all God’s people said together, Amen.

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Transcript 20261004

Rev. John Pennylegion – October 4, 2026

Good morning. Welcome to Christ the King. My name is Penny, and I’m the senior pastor here, and it is good to be with you. If you are a guest or visitor, welcome. We’re glad that you’re here. And I would just reiterate that if you have opportunity to talk with Nate or any of his students after the service, you should take advantage of that. RUF is one of the best things that the PCA does, and they’re doing great work in Lynchburg and at other campuses around the commonwealth. And if you don’t have opportunity to talk with Nate or his students today, you can talk to Jason Little. He’s the area coordinator over RUF. You can talk to me. I’m the committee chairman for our presbytery. We really like RUF around here. So, we’d be happy to sing its praise to you.

But this morning, we are returning to our series in the book of Colossians. So, we took a break last week from Colossians and spent some time in Psalm 139, but we’re returning to Colossians 3. So, if you have a Bible, you can turn to Colossians 3. We also project the passage on the screen, so you’ll be able to follow along there. And from a few weeks ago, if you’re with us, you’ll remember that we encountered a section of Colossians where Paul was calling us to flee from the vices of this world and to pursue the virtues of God’s kingdom. He was talking about us putting off sin and putting off vice and putting on godliness and beauty and truth. You remember Tobias used the illustration of spandex or lycra and how hard it is to take off, right? Like, that’s sin. It’s hard to remove. And we do this, right? We take it off and we put on virtue through God’s grace, through his strength, through his ability, through his work in us. But as we think about virtue and vice and as we’re coming out of that section, it’s easy to just leave those ideas in kind of the theoretical, in the general, right? Sometimes it can be hard to know how to apply God’s word and how it takes root in our lives and how it plays out in our lives.

Well, this morning in our passage, Paul’s going to get a little specific. He’s going to get a little specific because he’s going to start talking about the household. And he’s going to talk about our relationships, husbands to wives and parents to children and masters to servants. And as I was thinking about this passage this week, the voice of this elderly man from my church in St. Louis was running through my head. Before my wife and I moved here to Roanoke, we were in St. Louis serving at a church there, and there was an elderly man. His name was Roger. Roger was a retired pastor who actually grew up in the Commonwealth of Virginia but made his way to St. Louis. And every once in a while after a sermon that maybe convicted him, maybe pricked his heart, you know, maybe was a little too close to home, he would come up to one of the pastors who was preaching and say, “Boy, you stopped preaching and you started meddling this morning.” And I couldn’t help but think that if Roger was reading this passage from Colossians, he might think, Boy, Paul, you’re starting to meddle because Paul’s going to talk about our home lives. He’s going to talk about our relationships, about husbands and wives, about children and parents, about masters and servants. And what we’re going to see is that God’s Word isn’t just sage advice. It isn’t an interesting idea. It’s not just suggestions. But God’s Word is supposed to influence every aspect of our lives, and it’s supposed to reorient us around what is true and what is good and what is beautiful, even in our homes. So let’s go ahead and read Colossians 3, beginning in verse 18. Paul writes,

“Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.” (ESV)

Friends, this is the word of the Lord. Let me pray.

Heavenly Father, we ask that as we come to your word that you would lead us, you would guide us, that you would direct our ways. Father, we need your help. Apart from your work, we would be blind to your truth, and we would turn from your goodness, and we need you to turn us back to you. Open our eyes, unplug our ears, soften our hearts. We pray all this in Christ’s name, amen.

So, a couple weeks ago, my family and I were re-watching that amazing courtroom drama, A Few Good Men. A Few Good Men is this wonderful story about two marines who have been accused of murdering a fellow marine. This death actually was an accident. It wasn’t intended to occur, but it was an accident that happened as the marines were seeking to discipline this other marine because he went outside the chain of command. And there are lots of great lines from this movie, right? I’m not going to try and do Jack Nicholson, but there’s this one scene in particular that struck me again when I was watching it. And it’s this scene with Lance Corporal Dawson. Lance Corporal Dawson is one of the marines who has been accused of murder. He’s on trial, and he speaks about his adherence to the code. And when asked what the code was, he said, “Unit, corps, God, country.” Unit, corps, God, country. And what he meant by this was that this code was to orient his entire life. Everything that he did and everything a marine was expected to do was filtered through this code. So much so that when Lance Corporal Dawson was offered the opportunity to take a plea deal and get out of jail in six months, he said this: “We joined the marines because we wanted to live our lives by a certain code, and we found it in the corps. Now you’re asking us to sign a piece of paper that says we have no honor. You’re asking us to say we’re not marines. If a court decided that what we did was wrong, then I’ll accept whatever punishment they give. But I believe I was right, sir. I believe I did my job, and I will not dishonor myself, my unit, or the corps so I can go home in six months, sir.” It’s this incredibly powerful scene. It’s this incredible scene where he is declaring that he cannot, he will not act in such a way, even when it’s advantageous for him to, he will not act in such a way that breaks the code. Because the code informed everything and every aspect of his life.

The Centrality of Christ

And the same is true of the Christian. Our lives are built around a code, if you will. It’s the code that we belong to Jesus. It’s the code of what we heard in the verses in our previous section. Our previous section ended with Paul saying, “whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Do everything in the name of the Lord. Not just Sunday things, not just Bible reading things, not just praying things. Everything, every aspect of our lives is to be oriented around the centrality of Jesus, even our relationships. And that’s

the first thing I want us to see. Before we start to dive into the specifics of these relationships, I want us to see that at the core of these relationships is the centrality of Christ. And we see how often Jesus shows up as he talks about these relationships, right? That in every relationship he invokes Jesus. We see it in verses 18, 20, 22, 23, twice in verse 24 and in chapter 4 verse 1. He invokes the name of the Lord. And what does he say? He says that our behavior is to be formed by our relationship with the Lord. That we are to live as is fitting to the Lord. That we are to please the Lord. That we are to fear the Lord. That we are to work for the Lord. That we are to know what we receive comes from the Lord. That we are to serve the Lord. And that we are to remember that the Lord is the maker, the master who is in heaven. And so before anything else, before we get into specifics, before we look at these relationships, we must recognize that every one of our relationships, regardless of who we are in that relationship, must be centered on Christ. He is our foundation. He is the center. He is the one who orients and dictates the manner of our relationships and how they are to be lived out, not us. He is the Lord, not us. We don’t set the terms for how we relate to our spouse, or to our children, or to our parents, or to our superiors. No. No, Christ does. He is central to every relationship.

A Mutual Esteem

And flowing out of that, our relationships are to be marked by mutual esteem. Now this idea that regardless of position, whether you are a husband or a wife, a child or a parent, a master or a servant, this idea that every person has dignity and value and esteem, that’s not strange to us. That’s not foreign to us. In fact, if anything, we live in a time that prizes it so greatly that we have removed any sort of distinction at all, which is, you know, a problem in of itself. But that’s another sermon. No. No, this idea, it’s not foreign to us. However, what is common for us was actually very uncommon to Paul’s original hearers. You see, in Paul’s day, in his cultural context, wives and bondservants were property. And children were only valued if they brought honor to the family, if only they had utility. And so what we see is that Paul is actually turning the cultural appropriation of his day on its head. When he says, husbands, love your wives, fathers, don’t provoke your children, masters, treat your servants justly, like this would have been crazy to his hearers. He’s introducing an entirely new ethic to them. We take it for granted, but it was not the norm of Paul’s day. And we take it for granted because of how much Christian ethics have actually influenced our world.

The historian, Tom Holland, (not Spider-Man – Tom Holland the historian, who’s not a Christian) he wrote, “Paul’s letters and the gospels are the most influential, the most impactful, and the most revolutionary writings that have emerged from the ancient world.” We take them for granted that people have value and dignity, but we take it for granted because God’s Word, His ethic, has taken root in His people and has influenced the culture at large so that our culture is actually borrowing from our ethic. And that’s a good thing. We should be thankful for that. And we should see that Paul is changing the norm by which husbands and fathers and masters related to their wives and children and servants. Because now the way that we are to interact with one another is to be marked by love and encouragement, justice and mutual esteem. Okay, so how does this play out then? If this is now how we are to live, if this is how it is supposed to be manifest in our relationship, how does it look? What does it look like?

Well, Paul says, wives submit to your husbands and husbands love your wives. Now, when Paul says, wives submit to your husbands, this does not mean that women by their very nature are less important. Okay, that is not what it means. In fact, the biblical understanding

of humanity is that men and women are both made in the image of God, both deserving value and worth and dignity. We heard it in our Old Testament reading this morning, right? We hear it in Genesis 1 that God has made man and woman both in His image. Also, we know that women featured very prominently in the ministry of Jesus. They were some of His earliest followers. Women are the ones who discovered the empty tomb. And women were the first proclaimers of the resurrection. Also, just read Paul, especially the end of Paul’s letters, like the end of Romans, and we see women all over the place serving and ministering and engaging in kingdom advancing work. And so, when Paul talks about submission, he is not talking about worth or value. He is also not talking about women universally submitting to men universally, without distinction. He is talking about a single relationship. And he is speaking about specific relationship in order to give order to the home. You see, Paul grounds this in Christ, as is fitting in the Lord. Fitting in the Lord.

So, that means that the way of Christ is to orient the life of the home for the wife, as well as for the husband. Now listen, this doesn’t mean that husbands have absolute authority. It doesn’t mean that husbands can treat their wives any way that they want. No. No. In fact, all of us have an ultimate authority, and that is Jesus. And so, if a husband was ever to encourage a wife to do something that was sinful, contrary to the ethic of God’s kingdom, to turn away from the Lord, the wife has a greater obligation to obey the Lord than her husband. We all are to have greater allegiance to the Lord. And husbands are not to rule over their wives. Instead, husbands are to love their wives. To love their wives. Now, Paul here in Colossians doesn’t expound on what that looks like, but we know in Ephesians 5 he does. Where Paul defines what this love of wife is going to look like when he says that it is like the love of Christ for his church. And that love was a love of sacrifice. It was a love of sacrifice. That’s how husbands are to love their wives, by sacrificing for them. C.S. Lewis, in his wonderful book, The Four Loves, when talking about the relationship between a husband and a wife, he says of the husband that his relationship with his wife is to be like a crucifixion, whose wife receives most and gives least. Because that’s what we receive from Christ. That is the love of Christ that he gave of himself for the sake of the church. That’s how husbands are supposed to love their wives.

It’s embodying 1 Corinthians 13 that says love not insists on its own way. Not, I’m the husband, we must do what I desire. No, love does not insist on its own way. Love sacrifices. Love gives of itself. Love serves. And so what this means, what Paul is telling us, is that the relationship between a husband and a wife is to be one in which we prioritize the other over every other relationship we encounter. And y’all, that is not controversial. I realize that. If you go talk to a counselor, any marriage counselor worth their salt, they will tell you the same thing. You have to prioritize your marriage if you want it to be good, right? Y’all know this. And yet I wonder, if we were to look through our text messages and our phone histories, I wonder if we would see that we are talking to our parents or our children or our siblings more than we are our spouse. I wonder, married couples, if we are looking to our mother or our father before our husband or our wife. I wonder if we stand by our spouse or do we stand by our children or our parents. I have a friend who he was telling me not too long ago that there are times when his children will try to pit mom against dad. Like, y’all have seen this, right? When you were children, you did it. And children, you do do it, right? You do it all the time. So, sometimes his adult children will try to do this, right? Mom will say something. They maybe didn’t really like it, so they go to dad. And dad always says to them, “Hey, I just want to let you know I’m always on her side.” Now, there are times where he might go after the fact or it gets reversed and she’ll come after the fact and be like, I think maybe they got a point here and maybe we should talk about a little bit more. But the point is, is that he’s

always with her. He’s always going to have her back over and against everyone else. I love that. I think that’s beautiful. That is loving your wife. That is having a family in which husband and wife are prioritizing one another.

And so, I wonder, I wonder for the rest of us, if it is evident that our spouse is our priority over everyone else. Mutual esteem between husband and wife. But this mutual esteem is also between parent and child, right? Paul says, “children, obey your parents.” Fathers, encourage your children or adults, do not provoke them. No, kids, I just want you to know. I understand that when you’re like 14, your parents do not understand you and the world is different and that angst is going to take on a whole new kind of life of its own in your life and that you’re going to push against parental authority. I get it. I, too, listened to Linkin Park when I was younger, okay? Teenage angst seems to be just a common part of growing up and it has become commonly accepted in our world. And yes, you are to grow and mature and take on more personal responsibility and not depend upon your parents as you continue to grow and mature. And yet, rebellion and outright disregarding of your parents’ direction is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s just not. I get it. They don’t understand you. You know what? They really don’t sometimes. That is true.

And you know what? They really do a lot of the time. Paul said, it pleases the Lord when you obey your parents. Man, isn’t that a beautiful thing? Like, don’t we all want to please the Lord to have the Lord look upon us with a smile? It pleases the Lord. Now, again, I have to throw out the caveat, right? Your ultimate allegiance is to the Lord, so if your parent is calling you to sin, to disregard the Lord, you’re not supposed to obey that. However, assuming all things being true, all things being equal, that they’re encouraging your walk with the Lord, it pleases God when you obey them. And then Paul says, fathers, encourage your children. Care for them. Don’t provoke them. Now, pretty much every commentary is unified that not provoking is speaking of the father or the mother who is severe with their parenting. Severe with their parenting. Okay, now maybe some of us have heard the parenting method that we have to break the will of the child to obey us. I’m not going to ask for a show of hands of people who have said that because my hand would go up. I remember thinking that’s what five-year-old, that’s what I have to do. I have to make sure that they’re going to obey, and yet as I was thinking about this passage, I realized that yes, children are to obey their parents. The parents are the ones who set the terms of the relationship, who orient our family, and yet we’re not called to break their will. We’re called to steward their humanity.

If you’re a parent now or one day you will be, there’s a good chance you’re going to have a child very different from you, and you could spend all your time finding their faults and trying to make them into your own image, or we could harness their excitement and their energy and their uniqueness towards the Lord. Now, that isn’t easy, especially when we see our children starting to look more and more like us, and seeing our sins and our faults being manifest in them, and yet parents, we are called to shepherd our children, not provoke them, to direct them in the ways of the Lord, and children, you are called to obey your parents, that there is a mutual esteem, a mutual esteem between husband and wife, a mutual esteem between parent and child, and Paul concludes with a mutual esteem between masters and bondservants. Now, I will just say it is very common amongst pastors and theologians that when we get to any discussion about masters and bondservants to run to the modern workplace, and I get that tendency, and there is appropriate application here, okay, so we’ll get to that in a second. However, before moving to that appropriate application, we have to acknowledge this is not the exact same as the boss-employee dynamic that we experience. There is difference here, because bondservants were slaves. Many translations translate it that

way. The ESV, when it was first translated, translated it that way, but over time, they changed the translation to bondservant, and the reason is, is because as soon as we hear slave, our minds go to the American slave trade, right? It goes to that part of our history, but slave in the ancient world, in Paul’s time, wasn’t the same as slave in the American colonies, okay? Slavery in ancient times, in Paul’s times, was oftentimes brought about by war, or by a debt that was incurred, or someone would sell themselves into slavery so they would have a place to protect them, that they would actually have provision then, and so slavery wasn’t the same as it was in America. It wasn’t based on race or ethnicity. It was oftentimes financial, and what Paul is saying is that the bondservant and the master, their lives are to be dictated by the Lord, that the bondservant, as he works, does so not for the praise of their master, not for the praise of the employer, but unto the Lord. He is the one who watches over their labor, and what’s amazing is Paul says that the bondservant shares in the same inheritance as the master. Y’all, that would have blown their mind. That would have been, that would have been crazy to them, that the bondservant was going to share in the benefits of Christ just as their master does, and the reason that they share in that inheritance is because the masters, they too live under the rule of another. You see, they are to know that the Lord is over everyone, over the master, over the servant, over you and me, and so now we see how this can apply to us, don’t we? That regardless of what you’re called to labor at, we do so not for the acclaim of others, not for our employer, but for the Lord, and whoever we, whoever may have people in our charge, we lead and we direct and we supervise, remembering that we too serve a master, and that’s the reality we all live with. Regardless of your relationship, regardless of your situation, regardless of your circumstance, we are all living under the authority and eye and rule of Jesus. He is the one who directs our ways. He is the one who leads us with love. He is the one who treats us justly and with care, and his life informs every part of our lives, and so regardless of who you are, whether you are a wife, a parent, or a child, whether you are a master or a servant, we are to live by that code, that we do all things for the glory of Christ. Amen. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we do thank you. We thank you that you are the ruler over all, that you are the ruler over our relationships, you are the ruler over our lives, you are the ruler over this world, and so we pray, Father, that you would help us to live in such a way that you are central in our relationships, that we would love and care for one another, that we would have esteem for one another, and that we would live in such a way that gives you glory. Father, we ask that you would help us to do this, and we pray all this in Christ’s name, and God’s people said together, Amen.

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Rev. John Pennylegion – September 27, 2026

Good morning. Welcome to Christ the King. If we haven’t met, my name is Penny, and I’m the senior pastor here, and it’s good to be with you. If you are a guest or a visitor, we’re glad that you would join us this morning, and my hope, my desire is that what you would know this morning, if you are a guest or a visitor, or if you’ve been coming for many years, my hope, our desire is that you would know the hospitality of Christ, that you would know the welcome of Jesus, that you would experience kindness and grace from his people, that you would hear that from his word, and we would experience it in song. And as we dine at his table, and as we connect with one another after the service, we desire, we hope, and pray that what you experience is God’s grace, because the truth is, is that’s what every single one of us is in need of. Every one of us needs his mercy. Every one of us needs his kindness. Every one of us needs his grace, regardless of who you are or where you come from. That’s what you need, that’s what I need, and so our prayer, our hope, is that that is what we would know more of this morning as we come to worship. So, if you are a guest, welcome. We’re glad you’re with us.

Well, this morning, normally, we would be continuing in our series in Colossians. If you’ve been with us for the last number of months, we’ve been going through the book of Colossians. We’ve been going verse by verse, chapter by chapter, line by line through Colossians, and we’re nearing the end of the book. We were scheduled this morning to enter into the latter half of chapter 3 and the very beginning of chapter 4. This is the section of Colossians that’s known as the household codes, and so this part of Colossians talks about husbands and wives and parents and children and masters and bond servants, but we’re going to take a break for a week from Colossians. We’ll get to that. We’ll come to that. We’ll be in that passage next week. So, kids, you can look forward to hearing about your interaction with your parents next week. You can read ahead if you would like, but this morning, instead, what I would like for us to do is to do a little reflecting on a psalm, Psalm 139, and so if you have a Bible, you can turn to Psalm 139.

If you don’t have a Bible, there are Bibles in the chairs in front of you, and the passage is projected on the screen. You’ll be able to follow along there, but I’m wanting us to reflect on 139 because the truth is that the last not just week, not just few weeks, but really the last month has been pretty heavy. I felt the heaviness, the weightiness, right? We feel the weightiness in the world. We look at the world around us, and we see immorality. Immorality within our national and state leaders. We see the adoption of laws that are contrary to God’s kingdom. We’re being encouraged to adopt laws in our own commonwealth that are contrary to God’s kingdom and wicked at best. We see wars. We see the warnings of an AI apocalypse, right? That’s the world around us, and then when we get closer to home, we experience in our relationships strain. We see friends that are suffering. We have people that we know who turn their back on what is good and true, and then we come into our walls. Many of you are struggling with chronic pain and have little expectation of relief. We’re burdened with worry about our children, our siblings, our parents.

Recently, very healthy men in our midst, Terry and Scott – an abscess on the spine and a stroke – these medical problems that just seem to arise out of nowhere and terrify us and create fear in us. A couple weeks ago, Louise England was born, and we rejoice that she

came into this world, but we know that for the next number of weeks, maybe even months, she’s going to live in the NICU. Then, this past week, Rebecca died. And for those who have just been with us for the last couple months, you may not know, Rebecca was our music director for the last four or so years, and her body gave way to the disease that was riddled with it. Then we add to these things the normal burdens of our day, the fatigue that we experience from caring for others, the weights that we bear that no one knows. We’re weighed down. We’re heavy. We’re burdened.

And as I was thinking about these things this past week, a hymn kept coming to my mind. It’s a song here. It’s pretty sad, actually. It’s called “Beams of Heaven,” and there’s a line in it that says, “Burdens now may crush me down. Disappointments, they’re all around. Troubles speak and mournful sigh sorrow through a tear-stained eye,” and that feels like the last month, doesn’t it, and we wonder when we experience burden, when we experience the weight of the world, when we experience death, we wonder where is God in the midst of this, and maybe we even wonder if we’re allowed to wonder that. Are we even allowed to ask that question? Well, that’s where Psalm 139 has been rattling around in my head. It’s these words of the Lord, these words of David that begin in verse 7. Follow along. David writes,

“Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” (ESV)

Friends, this is the Word of the Lord. Let me pray for us.

Lord, we ask that as we come to your Word now, that your presence would be made known to us, that by your Spirit you would lead us, that our eyes would be opened to your glory, that our ears would be unclogged so we could hear your truth. And so we pray, Father, be near to your people, be near to us. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.

So David is the author of this psalm, and we heard what he asked, right? He asked, “where shall I go from your Spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence?” And he’s asking that question that we’ve wondered, isn’t he? Isn’t he basically asking, God, where are you, Lord? Are you there? Right? And he doesn’t just throw this out into the ether. He doesn’t just throw this out into nowhere. He actually starts to get into very specific places, right? God in heaven, in Sheol, in the morning, in the uttermost parts of the sea, in the darkness, in these places. God, are you there? Are you with us? Are you near your people? I mean, think about the places that David mentions, right? Heaven, the place of glory, the place of goodness, the place of God’s abode, right? It is where he dwells. But then David contrasts it with Sheol, the place of death. In some places, this is the place of judgment. He then talks about the morning when new hope arises, and the uttermost parts of the sea, right? When we are far from people,

when we are isolated, when we are alone. And then he moves into the place of darkness, be it the darkness of night, or the darkness of sadness, or the darkness of deep depression.

These are places we’ve known, right? Maybe not all of them, maybe not each one of us knowing all of them, but these are the places that people know. These are the places that we have been, and if you haven’t yet, you will, right? Because we know that in life there is glory and goodness, but there is also sadness and grief. We know that in this life we’ll be surrounded by community, by people who love us, who care for us, who abide with us, but we also know that there will be times of loneliness and isolation. And in those times, we ask again, God, are you there? Are you there? Are you with us in the O.R.? Are you with us in the NICU? Are you with us in goodness and grief, in celebration and sadness? Are you there? And David answers. He says, “God, you are there. There you are.”

Now, we might think, well, of course God is in heaven, right? That is his abiding place. That is the place where he rules and he reigns. He is on his throne and he is dwelling from there. Of course he is there, but what David’s telling us is that no matter where we go, no matter where we find ourselves, God is there. Look at verses 11 through 12: “If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as day, for darkness is as light with you.” Y’all, that is remarkable to think about. It is remarkable to think about that the darkness to us, right? The night that is blacker than a moonless sky, right? I know the last couple of nights, the moon has been bright and majestic. My daughter has been sending me pictures to prove it. It’s been wonderful, and yet we know that there’s a darkness that can settle in, that the brightness of the moon can be shadowed by the clouds, that there is a darkness so deep, and yet it’s not too deep for the Lord, right? That it is not dark to him, that’s what David said, that there is nothing hidden from his sight, that darkness doesn’t overshadow him.

It reminds me of a line from my favorite writer, Wendell Berry, who passed away this month. In his wonderful book, Jaber Crow, he writes, “There is a light that includes our darkness, a day that shines down even on the clouds. A man of faith believes that the man in the well is not lost. He does not believe this easily or without pain, but he believes it. His belief is a kind of knowledge beyond any way of knowing. There’s a light that includes our darkness, a day that shines down even on the clouds.” Berry was right, that there’s light in the midst of darkness, that the clouds, though they may be heavy and black, there is a day, there is a light that shines upon them. Later in that same hymn, “Beams of Heaven,” the writer writes, “when in the darkness I would grope, faith always sees a star of hope.” And that’s what David is telling us. That’s what he is telling us, that though the clouds may be thick, though the darkness may be strong, there is hope. Hope that doesn’t deny the dark. Hope doesn’t say that the darkness isn’t really there. No, it’s a hope that knows the darkness cannot overcome.

I mean, do you remember how John began his gospel? John chapter 1, he says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And then in verse 5, so very quickly into John’s gospel, he actually introduces us to the theme of light. He moves off of the theme of the Word, and he moves on to the theme of light, a theme that features prominently in John’s gospel and in his epistles. And he says, this of Jesus, “In him was life, and the life was the light of man. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” You see, God pierces the darkness, and he shines the light of his Son into the world and into our lives. God, you are there in heaven, in the darkness. When we feel abandoned and alone, you are there. You’re there even in death.

Did you see what David said? “Where shall I go from your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” I already mentioned Sheol was sometimes referred as the place where the wicked would go, but sometimes it’s also just referring to the place of death, the place of the grave. And that’s how David is using it. He’s saying, even there, when we lay in the grave, even there we are not hidden from the Lord. Even there, he is there. Y’all, it is easy to believe that God is there with us in joy and celebration and good times, but this psalm in the Bible tells us that God is with us even in the worst of times, even in the hardest of places, and we know he is there with us in those times, because Jesus himself went through the hardest of times and went to the most horrific of places, that of the cross. He went to the horrible cross. He went there and he was abandoned to die, and in the middle of day, when it should have been bright, its brightest hour, the sky went black and the earth became dark, like the night. And Christ died and descended into the grave, but the darkness and the grave and death itself could not contain him, because the light of resurrection broke through the darkness.

And because the light of resurrection broke through the darkness, this means that no matter where we go, no matter what we experience, there is nowhere where God is not there with us. It doesn’t mean there’s no darkness. It doesn’t mean there’s no sadness or times of pain or suffering or loneliness. No, it doesn’t mean every day is Sunday morning with tulips and butterflies. No, no, it means that despite those times, whatever we feel, we can be sure that God has not turned his face away. I didn’t read the beginning of the psalm, but if you have your Bible still open, listen to how David begins. “Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up, you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it all together. You hem me in behind and before and lay your hand upon me.” David’s saying God knows you. He knows me. He knows every part of you. He knows where you are physically. He knows where you are emotionally. He knows where you are spiritually. He knows the recesses of your heart and the deep corners of your mind. He knows everything about you and he does not turn away. He does not turn away, right? David said, “you hem me in.” You hem me in.

As soon as I read that, my mind went to that scene in The Patriot. Do you remember that movie, The Patriot, right? Mel Gibson’s movie about the American Revolution and his son in the movie, right? This soldier, he’s courting this woman and as he’s courting this woman, he’s going to spend the night at her parents’ home with the woman there and her siblings. And so what did they do? They take this bag and they sew him up in it. Do you remember this? It’s not a sleeping bag that he can unzip. There’s no buttons. They literally sew it around him so he cannot get out and he can’t go near their daughter. God hems us in, but he doesn’t hem us in so that we can’t break free. He doesn’t hem us in to constrain us. He hems us in because he loves us. He surrounds us. He is with us. But David says, “you hem me in,” but he doesn’t stop there. He says, “you lay your hand upon me.” You lay your hand upon me. Presence and touch, I mean, that’s what we want. That’s what we need in sadness, isn’t it? In fear. We know this.

I mean, just watch two children as they’re watching a movie. Watch, just watch one child as they’re watching a movie and something comes on that terrifies them, that scares them. And what do they do? They bury their head in your shoulder and they feel your arms wrapped around them. Or they cry out in the middle of the night because a dream has woken them and they’re terrified and they’re afraid. And so what do we do from our rooms? We yell, “it’s just a dream. Go back to bed.” No. We go down the hall. We climb into their bed. Or they come

sprinting down the hall and they burst through our door and jump into our bed. And we hold them. We touch them. We give them our presence. This is what our children need in times of fear and terror, but this is what we need. Kids, it’s not just something that you grow out of. No, we always will need presence and touch. We need people to wrap their arm around us and to put their hand of comfort on our shoulder.

And what David tells us is that we don’t just receive that from one another. But we receive it from the Lord of heaven. You lay your hand upon me. A hand of comfort, a hand of guidance, a hand of assurance. God is gentle with us. He is there. Now listen, every Sunday we come and we bring a whole host of things with us when we walk through these doors. Many things that other people may not know about, things that everyone knows about. And so maybe this morning some of you walked in and you came and you’re in the heights of heaven. Maybe others are in the deepest of darkness and probably many of us are somewhere in between. But the promise of this psalm is that regardless of what you bring and wherever you may be, God is there also. Nicholas Wolterstorff, the philosopher reflecting on the death, the tragic death of his son in a climbing accident, said that instead of explaining our suffering, God shares it. And he does.

God shares our suffering through his son. Through him going to the cross and bearing what we could not bear. And going to his death and knowing what death comes, what it brings. And rising again and giving us life. God shares in our suffering. He knows it intimately. So that when we ask, where are you? We hear God say, I am with you. Hemming you in. Laying my hand upon you. Regardless of where you may be. The heights of heaven or the depths of Sheol. If we rise on the wings of the morning or we dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. If we find ourselves in darkness. God, you are there. Amen. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we do thank you. We thank you that there is nowhere we can go from your presence and there is nowhere we can flee from your spirit, but that you are with us. And so I pray, Father, that for those who mourn and grieve, those who are resting in goodness and joy, and those who are somewhere in between, Father, I pray that you would make your presence known to us. Hem us in. Lay your hand of comfort upon us. And let us know, let us be sure that wherever we go, you are there. And we pray all this in Christ’s name. And God’s people said together, Amen.

The post Psalm 139:7-12: You Are There appeared first on Christ the King Presbyterian Church.

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Rev. Tobias Riggs – September 20, 2026

Good morning. For those of you who don’t know, I am Tobias, the Associate Pastor here at Christ the King, and it’s my privilege once again to open God’s Word with us this morning. Last week, we were in verses 5 – 11, where Paul tells the Colossians to put off the old life, anger, malice, lying, all of it. But we didn’t end with the list. We ended with what God has already done for us. In Christ, our old self has been taken off, and the new self has been put on, a self that’s being renewed in the image of the one who made us. And this morning, Paul finishes the thought and tells us what we’re to wear now that we’ve put on the new self. But by the end of the passage, he’s talking about far more than clothing. He’s talking about everything we say and do. So what does that life look like, and what makes it possible?

Let’s turn there together. Chapter 3 of Colossians. We’re going to read verses 12 – 17.

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (ESV)

These are the words of the Lord. Let’s pray.

Oh, Father, we bow before you. We are so thankful that you have called us here today, that we can gather freely to sing your praises, to learn from your word. We thank you, Lord, that we have heard the beauty of the gospel, that we have been buried with our Savior, that we have been raised with him, and that we are seated with him now, in union with him, we are hidden with him. Thank you, Lord, for that. We thank you that you have put on the new self, and we pray, Lord, that you will teach us as we listen this morning to put on the things that reflect you. We cannot do this on our own, and so we pray for the Spirit to work within us, even as we ask the Spirit to give us insight, to open our eyes and ears to what you would have us hear this morning. And may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

Well, after last week, some of you may be nervous that a sermon about getting dressed is going to involve Lycra. Rest assured, I think we can all agree, once was plenty. Still, most of us know something about playing dress-up. Whether we’ve raised small children or simply remember being one, we know how much of childhood is spent that way. A towel becomes a cape, a pot becomes a helmet, and for an afternoon, a five-year-old is a knight or a doctor or whatever his older sibling happens to be. And working through this passage, I was reminded of something C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity. He says that every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we’re doing something like dressing up. We’re calling God our Father, which is language that belongs first to the Son. And so, in a sense, we’re putting on Christ.

And Lewis admits how that looks. “Left to ourselves,” he says, “we’re a bundle of self-centered fears and hopes and jealousies. And so dressing up as Christ is a kind of pretending, even a piece of outrageous cheek.” But he says there are two kinds of pretending. There’s the kind that takes the place of the real thing, like a man who acts generous so that no one will notice he isn’t. And then there’s another kind. And he gets at that second kind with a question. “What is the good of pretending to be what you’re not?” His answer is that Christ uses it. As we put on what we don’t yet fully feel or live out, Christ is at work in us, making it real.

And I think Lewis is on to something here, but I’m not sure most of us would call it pretending. After all, when we try to put on compassion and patience and forgiveness, we aren’t playing a part. We’re honestly trying to obey. And yet we still fail, often the same day. And something in us wants to say, who am I kidding? I’m not those things. And that’s when we can start to feel like a fraud. And in that moment, pretending doesn’t feel far off the mark. But friends, Paul wouldn’t call that pretending either. In Christ, we’re not putting on something that is in ours. Our clothes aren’t a costume we wear in the hope of someday becoming God’s people. They’re the clothes of people who already belong to him. That’s why he calls us chosen, holy, and beloved, before he gives us a single garment. It’s as if he were saying, “Before I hand you something to wear, let me tell you who you are.” And so that’s where we need to begin this morning, with those three words, and with whose they were before they were ours. In verse 12, Paul calls the Colossians “chosen, holy, and beloved.” And we might be tempted to take those as merely warm words from the Apostle, but they’re more than that. They carry a history. They belonged to Israel.

In fact, these are the three words Moses uses to address them as they stood on the edge of the promised land. A people holy to the Lord, he says in Deuteronomy 7, chosen out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, loved simply because the Lord loves them. But now Paul says the same of the Colossians, and it helps to see who they were. Picture the room where Paul’s letter was first read aloud. Colossae is a small market town in the Lycus Valley. It’s overshadowed by larger neighbors. Most of the people in that room are Gentiles. In fact, most of them are the very people Paul named last week, Greeks, uncircumcised, Scythians, and some of them are still slaves. And yet Paul calls them chosen, holy, and beloved. Those words were never theirs. They belonged to somebody else’s nation, somebody else’s history, but now they’re “theirs.” Everyone.

Friends, that is a remarkable thing to say to a gathering like that, and yet Paul’s saying something more than that, because before these words were ever spoken over them or over us, they were spoken over someone else. In the New Testament, we hear them spoken over Jesus. At his baptism, he came up out of the water, and the Father said, “this is my beloved son with whom I’m well pleased.” Peter calls him “the living stone, chosen and precious in the sight of God.” And when many of his disciples turned away in John 6, Peter said, “we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God. You see, before these words belonged to the church, they belonged to the Son.” And so when Paul calls the Colossians chosen, holy, and beloved, he isn’t only telling them they’re God’s people like Israel, he’s telling them that what belongs to Jesus now belongs to them. Not just God’s people, sons in the Son, and he says it of us too.

And what’s true of those three words is also true of the clothing and the rest of verse 12, because nearly every garment Paul hands us here was God’s first. Take compassion, kindness, and patience. The gods the Colossians grew up with were famous for their tempers, for being touchy and fickle and easily offended. Kindness definitely wasn’t their reputation. But when the Lord passed before Moses on the mountain in Exodus 34, he proclaimed himself “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” That’s the compassion, kindness, and patience on Paul’s list. And the Lord said it of himself first. And it’s worth saying something more about compassion, because Paul’s word for it is stronger than our translation suggests. The ESV says “compassionate hearts,” but the word behind it is Paul’s. It’s not Paul’s usual word for the heart. It means the inward parts, the gut. The King James renders it “bowels of mercies,” which is faithful to the Greek, but I’ll leave you to imagine how that would land today. The point though is that this compassion is felt deep inside, so much so that it turns us toward others. In fact, Paul uses that same word for Onesimus. Sending him home, Paul tells Philemon, “I’m sending him back to you, sending my very heart.” A slave had become Paul’s innermost self. And then there’s humility, which would have sounded strange to Colossian ears. In their world, it was hardly a virtue at all. It was closer to an insult, a word for the posture of a slave, someone with no standing to speak of.

And yet there it sits in the wardrobe of God’s chosen ones. And I imagine the slaves in that room heard it a bit differently. But it’s there because Jesus said of himself, “I am gentle and lowly in heart.” That word “lowly” is Paul’s humility word. And the word behind gentle is the same one behind Paul’s meekness. Both belonged first to the Son, who took the form of a servant. And humility and meekness as he showed them, set aside whatever standing would keep us at arm’s length from others and move toward the lowly. Friends, these are our family clothes. And every one of them was Christ’s before it was ours. But what is it like to wear them? I mean, it’s not like a cozy sweater on a cold morning. These clothes are demanding. They cost something.

And so Paul goes on in verse 13 to tell us what wearing them involves. “Bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other.” You see, Paul isn’t naive about the church. He knows perfectly well that someone is going to have a complaint. And he doesn’t mean a misunderstanding or a bruised ego. He means a real wrong. The kind that requires forgiveness. And we acknowledge the same thing every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer together as we did this morning. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” In that one prayer, we confess both that we owe and that we are owed. And that’s what Paul’s getting at. He isn’t describing a church that stopped wounding one another. He’s describing how wounded people are to live together. But bearing with one another and forgiving, it’s hard for us, isn’t it? A complaint rarely feels like something we need or want to let go of. It feels like being right. And when we’re right, we don’t move toward the person. We nurse the complaint.

It shows up as the conversation we keep rehearsing in the car. The one where we finally say exactly what we mean and the other person finally understands. It shows up in how we tell the story to a friend and how the other person comes off a bit worse each time. We convince ourselves we’re just remembering accurately. But really, we’re keeping a record. And a record is exactly what Paul won’t let us keep. His answer instead is to bear one another and forgive. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And I think this is where we need to come back to Onesimus. You see, he was from Colossae, and so was the man he wronged. Philemon was in that room, a man with a real complaint. And Paul asks him to receive Onesimus as a brother. And he asked the whole church meeting in his house to do the same. That’s what Paul’s command looks like in person. But it’s a hard thing to ask, and Paul knows it. And this is why he gives us one final garment, love. In verse 14, he says, “Above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

Now, above all sounds like a ranking. But Paul’s still talking about getting dressed. Love goes over the rest, the way a cloak goes over everything else and holds the whole outfit together. In fact, the word he uses for that binding is the one he used in chapter 2, for ligaments that knit a body together. Love is what makes it possible to bear with the brother who’s wronged us, to be patient with him, not just the seventh time, but the seventy-seventh time, and to receive him when he comes back. And friends, the comforting thing is that this isn’t a love we have to manufacture. It’s the love the Father spoke over the Son at His baptism and has now spoken over us. We are beloved, and that’s where our love for one another begins. And yet, knowing we’re loved and living like it with one another are two different things. And so, in verse 15, Paul leaves the clothing behind and tells us what our life together will need.

“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you are called in one body.” That word rule comes from the world of games. It’s the word for the umpire, the official who decides the contest and awards the prize. And it’s just like Paul to use an athletic image, right? Writing to the Philippians and the Corinthians, it was running for the prize. Here, it’s the man who decides the race. And his point is this. In every heart, someone is making the call. Something is deciding what counts and where we stand. And that, Paul says, must be the peace of Christ. And Paul’s used that word before in this letter, but pointed the other way. In worship of angels, to disqualify is to be ruled out. And there were men in Colossae who’d set themselves up as the officials of the Christian life. And they had a rule book, special days, food laws, a hard discipline of the body, and a kind of humility that could be displayed and admired. It had, Paul says, the appearance of wisdom, and it was working. Some of the Colossians were beginning to wonder whether they’d been disqualified. And some had started keeping the rule book, hoping it would settle the question. And, you know, it’s not hard for us to imagine why men like that found an audience.

After all, when we ourselves keep failing at the same sin, when we’re not sure we’ve grown at all in years of following Jesus, what do we do? We start looking for something that will give us some confidence that we’re really his. A new devotional practice, maybe, or a season of fasting, a conference, or a pastor or a friend whose walk with the Lord seems to be everything ours isn’t. None of these is wrong in itself, and some of them do us real good, but the danger is that we hand them the whistle. We let someone other than Christ tell us where we stand, and that’s exactly what was happening in Colossae. Men who weren’t holding fast to the head, as Paul says, had found their standing somewhere else, and they were telling the Colossians to do the same. But the peace of Christ is a different official altogether. It’s the peace he made by the blood of his cross. That peace doesn’t disqualify us. In Christ, we’ve already been received, but it isn’t only about our own comfort. Paul says we were called to that peace in one body, and when he tells the Ephesians that it broke down the dividing wall of hostility, he means that that peace did something between people, not just inside them.

So the peace that comforts us is also the peace that rules between us, and this means it’s going to have something to say about the complaint we’re still nursing against a brother, and it won’t simply take our side. And if we’re honest, we don’t like that, do we? It means the Lord’s ruling might put something, point something out in us, and none of us enjoys being told we’re wrong, or that we’re the one who needs to change, and so instead of submitting to his rule, we often resist it. But friends, his rule is meant to be a mercy, and it should lead us to gratitude. This is why Paul adds three words almost in passing, “and be thankful.” But they’re not in passing. He’s going to return to them twice more in verses 16 and 17, three times in three verses.

Thankfulness is what he’s building toward, and that’s because of where the passage began. You see, people who are chosen, holy, and beloved, who’ve been rescued from the domain of darkness, forgiven all their trespasses, and raised with Christ, have a great deal to be thankful for. But there’s something else too, and it goes back to the umpire. If the peace of Christ is what makes the call, then we don’t have to, and that’s a weight we were never fit to carry anyway. Instead, we submit to him, and trust him to bring us back to each other, and that’s something to be thankful for. And there’s one more thing worth pointing out here. Paul’s word for forgiving one another, back in verse 13, is built on the word for grace. So his, so is his word for thankfulness. And this makes sense. Thankfulness is grace received. Forgiveness is basically grace passed on. And when we can’t do either, we’ve usually got the same thing wrong. We’re basically keeping accounts. Either we’ve decided that someone owes us, or we’ve decided that what we’ve been given was no more than our due.

But a grateful heart can’t keep those accounts. It doesn’t hold on to grievances, and it isn’t looking for another gospel. It knows its own debt was canceled, and it refuses to hold anyone else’s against them. So how do we come to live like this? Well, Paul answers in verse 16. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly”- Dwell in you richly. He isn’t describing a word that visits us now and then, but one that lives within us, and not just in us individually. The “you” there is plural. And friends, when the word of Christ dwells in us, Paul says we’ll be “teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” Now that teaching and admonishing, it happens among us in all sorts of ways. But look at the one Paul names, singing. And it’s not just the pastors and elders. It’s all of us. You see, when we sing together on a Sunday morning, we’re not warming up for the main event, the sermon. We’re catechizing each other. And so even those of us who aren’t confident singers shouldn’t hold back. When we sing, we’re handing something. We’re handing something to the person beside us. And what we sing stays with us.

I think we all know this. There have been times, I’m sure, when you couldn’t find the words to pray, and what came to mind instead was a hymn you’d sung for years. Or you’ve stood here on a Sunday too tired or too grieved to sing, and yet you’ve been carried by the voices around you. Horatio Spafford wrote, “when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul.” “Thou hast taught,” he says. The Lord taught him to say, “it is well,” whatever his lot. And what’s beautiful about singing is that the Lord has taught most of us the same thing by putting Spafford’s words in the mouths of the people beside us. And so we sing with thankfulness in our hearts to God. And that’s where Paul ends too, with thankfulness. In verse 17, he gathers everything he said into one sentence. “And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Some of you were with us for my first sermon years ago on the third commandment. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” And what we found then was that bearing his name was never mainly a matter of how we speak. It’s a matter of how we carry it. His name is on us, and it goes wherever we go. And that’s what Paul’s after here, only from the other side. Don’t just avoid carrying his name emptily, carry it into everything. And yet it wouldn’t surprise me if most of us, when we hear that we’re to do everything in his name, feel overwhelmed, maybe even confused. We look at our lives and see only the failures and not the path forward. And so this is where we have to start asking, what would it look like for us to post or comment or scroll in the name of the Lord Jesus? To talk about politics and the news that way, including with the relative who sees it all very differently. To sit on the sideline at a soccer game or to coach one as people who bear his name. The path forward isn’t always obvious, and it isn’t easy. It takes his wisdom and his strength, and that’s one more reason we need his word dwelling in us richly.

But it isn’t only that we find it confusing. Often in our embarrassment or our weakness, we find it too costly to carry his name into any of it. And so we let those moments pass. But friends, think about what it cost him. On the day Jesus was crucified, the soldiers divided his garments and cast lots for his tunic, and the son whose name we now bear hung on the cross, stripped of everything. He bore the Father’s name perfectly in every word and every deed, and he was condemned as though he’d borne it in vain. Now this isn’t a call to muster that kind of faithfulness ourselves. We carry his name the same way, Paul says, we put on the clothes as people who already belong to him, chosen, holy, and beloved. That’s where he began this passage, and it’s where we begin to, not with what we can summon, but with what we’ve been given.

And as we close, I’m reminded of a poem George Herbert wrote about being dressed in Christ called Aaron. It opens with the high priest in his vestments, holiness on his head, light and perfection on his breast, bells ringing at his hem. But then Herbert looks at himself and he finds the opposite. He finds profaneness on his head and darkness in his own breast, a poor priest he calls himself. And then he remembers he has another head and another heart, and in him he is well dressed. And this is what he says, “Christ is my only head, my alone only heart and breast, my only music, striking me even dead, that to the old man I may rest and be in him new dressed.” Friends, the old man is the old self we took off last week. New dressed is everything Paul’s given us this morning. And that’s true of every one of us who belongs to Christ. We walk out of here dressed, not in what we manage to put on, but in him. And so we carry his name into everything, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Let’s pray.

Oh Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for what you have done. We thank you that you have given us the gift of the Spirit that not only seals us and protects us, but strengthen us and strengthens us and empowers us to walk in your ways, to put on the family clothes. Help us to rest in these truths as we leave. We pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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Rev. Tobias Riggs – September 13, 2026

Good morning. It’s so good to see all of you here this morning. If you don’t know, my name is Tobias. I’m the Associate Pastor here at Christ the King, and it’s my privilege to get to open up God’s Word with you this morning. This morning, we’re going to continue in our study of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. And last week, Penny walked us through chapter 3, verses 1-4, and he gave us a picture of who we are, that we’re no longer hidden from Christ in our sinful alienation, but now, through faith, we’re hidden with Christ instead. In fact, He’s our very life, and because we’re hidden with Christ now, one day when He appears in glory, we too will appear in glory with Him.  And it’s in light of that incredible hope that Paul picks up one verse later, and so I invite you to turn to Colossians chapter 3. We’re going to look at verses 5-11. It says this,

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” (ESV)

Friends, this is the word of the Lord. Let’s pray.

Oh, Heavenly Father, we bow before you with grateful hearts. You take care of us. You have given us your word to teach us about who you are, what you have done on behalf of sinners, and what you call us to. And we are grateful for that. We thank you for this letter. We thank you for Paul’s faithfulness, and his wisdom. And we ask, Lord, that you will continue to teach us through it, by your Spirit. Open our eyes and our ears to what you would have us learn. Help us, Lord, this morning. May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight. Oh, Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

Well, so many of you know, I started cycling a couple of years ago. And I was recently introduced to a word I hesitate to admit applies to me now – Mamil. Not the four-legged kind, but M-A-M-I-L. It’s an acronym. It means “Middle-Aged Man In Lycra.” How’s that for a defeating descriptor? Apparently, now that I don the spandex, that’s me. Just one more mamil testing your patience on our beloved Roanoke roads. But here’s the thing about cycling clothing. It’s perfect for a Saturday morning climb, or a quick out and back on the greenway, but it’s useless. And my wife and kids would say downright inappropriate for anything after. Which means it needs to come off fast. The problem is, it doesn’t want to. More than once, I’ve stood in our bedroom, sweaty and out of breath, wrestling my way out of my jersey, wondering why something that went on so easily an hour or two ago won’t come off now.

Of course, it always does, but it definitely involves some grunting. Maybe cycling’s not your thing, but I’d bet most of us have experience with clothing that clings right when it’s time to move on to whatever’s next. Maybe it’s snow boots you have to hop on one foot to get off, or maybe it’s a sweater you get stuck halfway over your head every time. But whatever the specific item is, we can always get it off eventually if we wrestle long enough. But there’s a harder kind of change in clothes, and Paul’s been building toward it since the beginning of this letter. In fact, all the way back in chapter 1, Paul said something remarkable. He said we’ve been “rescued from the domain of darkness and moved into the kingdom of God’s own Son.” We’ve been transferred. We’ve been moved to an entirely new country, one that dresses differently than the old one did. And the problem is we’re still wearing our old clothes. We’re foreign transplants who don’t look the part yet. And I think this is a helpful analogy for understanding where Paul’s picking up this morning.

And so he begins with a command in verse 5, “put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you.” Now after all we’ve heard since the beginning of this letter, the raising, the hiding, the assurance of promised glory just last week, it almost sounds like he’s changing the subject, but he’s not. “Putting to death” is where getting dressed for our new country actually begins. But what actually counts for earthly? Well, Paul names the old wardrobe item by item: “Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” It’s an uncomfortable list. And our English translation actually undersells it a bit. Behind what is earthly in you is a more specific word, “members”, “limbs.” It’s the same word Paul uses elsewhere for the body of Christ, where we’re described as members of one another. That’s not distant language. It’s the language of our own body. And Paul knew this battle personally. He confesses it himself in Romans 7: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin.” This isn’t a doctrine Paul’s deduced from a distance. It’s a fight he’s lived.

Now, none of this means the body itself is what’s under attack here. Paul isn’t at war with his own members as such. He’s only at war with the vices using them. And four of these move together almost as one thought. You can call it a cluster of sins of desire: An act, then the residue it leaves, then the current underneath, then the wanting before it’s aimed at anything. It’s almost like he’s tracing a current down to its source. And it reminds me of what James said in chapter 1 of his letter: “Desire conceives and gives birth to sin, and sin, once it’s grown up, gives birth to death.” Paul isn’t interested in managing a progression partway through. He wants it stopped before desire even finishes conceiving. And he’s not ashamed about naming that current “sexual” as often as he does. Not because this is the only shape desire’s corruption takes, but because it’s here that using someone and loving someone are easiest to confuse. What we do with our bodies, with someone else’s body, either loves them or uses them. There’s nothing really in between.

It’s no wonder that Paul returns to this list or a list similar to it, writing to the Galatians, the Romans, his young protégé Timothy, city after city, letter after letter. Whatever was pressing on Colossae, this isn’t just a Colossian problem. It’s the shape evil desire takes, everywhere it’s left. But putting it to death is harder than admitting it’s there. Centuries after Paul, Augustine prayed with a kind of honesty most of us reserve for no one, not even ourselves: “Give me chastity, Lord. But not yet.” It’s a strange prayer to say out loud, but the feeling behind it isn’t strange at all. I imagine most of us have prayed some version of that, about something we know we should let go, but aren’t ready to yet. There’s a fifth item in the list we haven’t mentioned yet. It’s the one under all the others, I think: “Covetousness, which is idolatry.” The first four all show up somewhere specific, in a body, an act, a particular hunger. This one covers everything. It’s not another item on the list so much as what’s driving the other four. The desire for more, whatever the more turns out to be, no matter how much of it we get.

And the thing is, covetousness rarely feels dangerous. Instead it feels like practicality. A little more put away, a little more security, or it feels like ambition. The next raise, the bigger house. I don’t know what it looks like in your life, but I guess most of us can recognize it in ourselves if we’re honest. And yet that’s exactly the problem. We’re not honest with ourselves. We give it a nicer name instead. And when it goes too far, we’re more likely to joke about it than confessing it. Being too practical or too ambitious are among those acceptable sins. The kind we laugh off at dinner, not the kind we bring to prayer. We think of them as character flaws. Mildly embarrassing, maybe, but not really sin. But Paul doesn’t diagnose covetousness as a character flaw. He calls it idolatry. Whatever we’re certain would finally be enough, that’s our God, whether we’d use the word.

And idolatry, after all, is just devotion aimed at the wrong thing. You see, devotion is itself a kind of marriage, which makes misdirected devotion a kind of infidelity. Hosea’s life and ministry, all of it prove the point. And Paul, calling this covetousness idolatry, is standing shoulder to shoulder with him. And yet that’s not all idolatry does. It shapes what we become. Reminds me of a scene in C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. A boy named Eustace Scrub falls asleep on a dead dragon’s treasure with his mind devoted entirely to it. What it could buy him, how much it would finally make of him. And he wakes up a dragon, remember? His covetousness didn’t just describe what he did, it remade what he was. We become like whatever we worship, which is exactly why it matters so much what or who that is. Friends, all of this, the wanting that never stays satisfied, the worship aimed at the wrong thing, the being made into whatever we’ve bowed down to, all of this is still just what it looks like to keep wearing clothes that don’t belong on us anymore.

And if we stay dressed like this, Paul tells us in verse 6 what comes next: “On account of these, the wrath of God is coming.” It’s not someday in the abstract, but as a settled verdict of judgment. And that’s hard to hear. But the New Testament scholar Charles Cranfield says something worth holding on to. He says this: “Rightly understood, God’s wrath is an expression of his goodness, not its opposite. A God who felt nothing at injustice or corruption wouldn’t be good, he’d simply be indifferent.” So there are two things that are true here at once. This warning carries real weight. Staying dressed in these desires really does lead where Paul says it leads, and we need to hear this. And yet we also need to hear that this warning comes from a God whose character we can trust, not one prone to cruelty, but one whose opposition to sin flows from the very goodness that has already raised us with Christ and hidden our life with him. And Paul says as much himself in the both times, this isn’t who we are anymore.

But wanting like this rarely stops with what it does to us alone. It shapes how we treat others as well. And so what Paul turns to next isn’t desire anymore, it’s disunity. Look with me at verse 8. He says this, “but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.” Five things this time, and every one of them a way disunity shows up between us. But notice too that Paul’s changed the verb. A moment ago it was “put to death,” it was killing language, but here “it’s put away.” The New Testament scholar Scott McKnight offers a picture worth remembering, an old stained shirt worn through at the collar that we finally throw out instead of washing one more time. We don’t kill a shirt like that, we just stop wearing it. And yet we’re often slower to take this list, this second vice list, as seriously as the last one. Our obscenities get excused as a slip of the tongue. Our short tempers, they barely count as sin at all. But Paul doesn’t rank them that way. To him, a bitter, unforgiving heart is no lighter a sin than a lustful one. “Put away” carries the same weight as put to death. Yeah, the verb has changed, but the weight hasn’t.

And here’s what each one actually looks like.  Anger is what we feel. Wrath is what that feeling becomes once we act on it. Malice is wanting someone else to get hurt, and if we’re honest, malice rarely stays with us alone. It recruits, drawing others in. And once malice does this, it starts to talk. And Paul names two kinds of talk, slander and obscene talk. Now, neither of these really are about the words themselves. Slander is blasphemia in the Greek. It’s the same word scripture uses elsewhere for blasphemy against God himself. We never think of ourselves as blasphemers, but tearing down someone made in God’s image over coffee, in a text thread, in a version of a story we tell each other on a drive home, these things are as close to the same act that scripture uses the same word for them. And obscene talk. Obscene talk isn’t just crude language the way we, I think, we tend to hear it. Paul’s point here is that it’s speech that degrades. It cuts someone down to size quick and in the moment. Slander does this with a story built around the truth, usually, but obscene talk, it doesn’t need one.

But there’s one more thing on Paul’s mind, and he gives it a sentence all his own. He says, “do not lie to one another” in verse 9. Unlike everything before it, this command names who gets hurt. It’s not a general just corrosion of the church. He says, “do not lie to one another.” Why does he put it that way? Well, in Ephesians 4:25, he tells us, “Put away falsehood, speak the truth, because we are members of one another.” There’s that word again, “members.” The same one Paul told us to put to death back in verse 5. And it’s doing double duty here. There, it named the vices we had to kill. Here, it names the people we’re called to protect by refusing to lie to the person next to us. Anger and slander wound the people they’re aimed at. A lie does something worse. It poisons the ground everyone else is standing on, too, replacing whatever trust was holding this place together with suspicion instead. A community can absorb a lot, but it cannot survive on that.

Leviticus 19 already said this centuries ago. Centuries before Paul had ever wrote to the Colossians. It said, “You shall not lie to one another.” God’s people have never been permitted to build a community on anything but the truth. Now, we’ve moved slowly through this list, one word at a time, and it would be easy to hear all of it and think the answer is simply to try harder. And when I think about what that kind of effort would actually take, I’m reminded of a movie I love, The Shawshank Redemption. It’s about a man named Andy Dufresne, a banker wrongly convicted of a double murder, sentenced to two life terms for something he didn’t do. Near the film’s climax, we watch him escape, crawling to freedom through a sewage pipe, 500 yards of foulness, the movie says, none of us wants to imagine. He comes up out of a creek in the middle of a thunderstorm, arms lifted, lightning turning the rain white as it pours over him, and what’s easy to miss is what he’s been dragging behind him, a bag sealed in plastic against the filth, so that by the morning he isn’t just free, he’s someone else entirely, right down to a sleek suit, shined shoes, and even a new name already prepared and waiting.

For me, it’s one of the most beautiful portrayals of redemption, of leaving behind the old filth and beginning anew in modern cinema. But here’s the thing, all of it, the tunnel he dug out of his cell, the new identity he spent years building, he did it all. It was Andy, alone, from start to finish. And this raises a question worth asking, is that the kind of effort Paul’s asking of us here? Years of solitary work, digging and building ourselves free, one inch at a time? Friends, the answer is simple, no, not even partly. You see, Andy was innocent and more than capable of digging his own way out, but we’re neither. Paul tells us that apart from Christ, we’re not struggling to escape. We’re dead in our trespasses and sins. We’re still following the prince of the power of the air, bound to a master we can’t leave on our own. And what we need instead is what the English poet John Donne prayed for. We need God to “batter our hearts.” We need him to divorce us from the enemy holding on to us. We need him to enslave us to himself so that we might finally be free from the filth. The gospel isn’t a call to solo bootstrappa salvation. I’ve said it many times, it’s not save yourself one effort at a time. It’s a declaration of what God has done on your behalf. And here’s the good news. Paul tells us it already has.

Take another look at the end of verse 9 along with verse 10, and notice what he says there. “Seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge after the image of its creator.” Did you catch the shift? Up to this point Paul’s only told us what to do. Put to death what is earthly in you. Put away anger and malice and every lie. All of these are commands, things we’re still in the middle of. But here he says you have put off – You have put on. That’s not one more thing being asked of us. It’s Paul telling us something that’s already true, even though sometimes it might not feel like it within the struggle. He isn’t waiting for us to finish changing. He’s telling us we already have. In fact, he says so plainly to the Corinthians, if anyone is in Christ, he’s what? A new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come.

And yet that’s not the whole picture. Paul adds that we’re also being renewed. Unlike putting off and putting on, which happened once and are finished, renewal is still happening. But this isn’t just our own work. Writing to Titus, Paul uses the same word, renewal, and says it’s the Holy Spirit doing it in us. He says the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. And this is why Paul can say writing to the Philippians, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his own good pleasure. God works first. That’s the only reason any of this is possible at all. He works first, then we work, not instead of him, but because of him. And this is where everything he’s already told us to do this morning fits in. Putting to death, putting away, none of that is separate from renewal. It’s what the Spirit’s work actually looks like in us. And friends, this is slow work, all of it, I know. And it doesn’t always feel like progress while it’s happening. We’re still growing into what we already are, and some seasons, some seasons, it looks like there’s real change. We catch the anger before acting on it. We hold our tongue before we slander. But other seasons, it feels like nothing’s moved.

And yet Paul doesn’t measure renewal by how it feels. He just tells us it’s happening in us, whether we can see it yet or not. The Spirit’s still at work, even on the days when we can’t feel it. And yet none of this, the putting to death, the putting away, the slow work of renewal, is just about getting free of old clothes for their own sake. Look again at verse 10. Paul tells us that “the new self we’ve put on is being renewed after the image of its creator.” That word image, it comes straight from Genesis. “In the beginning, God made us in his own image, after his likeness.” That’s who we were built to be, but it’s not who we’ve been, not fully. And everything we’ve been told to put to death this morning, everything we’ve been told to put away, is, is proof of that. But it is who Christ already is. Think back to how Paul opened this letter. Christ, he said, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Firstborn. Christ was never meant to bear that image alone. Others were always meant to follow him into it. And that’s exactly what’s happening in us right now.

We’re being remade, renewed after his image, a little more each day to look like him. But this renewal, this renewal isn’t just an individual experience. That image, that likeness is a new humanity. One that doesn’t dissolve our individuality, but weaves us together into one people. Which is exactly why Paul brings this whole section to its conclusion in verse 11, with an emphasis on that unity. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. That’s a loaded list, right down to Scythian. Every one of those categories was a way people used to sort each other in Paul’s day. Who counted? Who didn’t? Who ought to be despised for this or that reason? And you know, if we’re honest, we still draw the same circles today with the tribes we choose, with the people we cancel. But here’s the thing, Paul doesn’t explain those distinctions or rank them. He simply ends them. Not Greek or Jew, not slave or free. None of it has any place among the people of God. Why? Because Christ is all and in all.

And a chapter later in this very letter, we see Paul putting this into action. He tells the Colossians in chapter 4, he’s sending them Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, he calls him. One of you, he says. Onesimus’ legal status under Rome as a slave hadn’t changed, but to Paul, he wasn’t a slave anymore. He was a brother. Friends, that’s a remarkable thing for Paul to have done. Could we do the same? I guess most of us already have someone in mind, someone we’ve decided is beneath us, we refuse to talk to, or maybe we talk about. Paul once had someone like that too. What changed wasn’t Paul’s effort. It was that for Paul, Christ really was all and in all, and his grace left no one beneath – anyone. Only then could he put off the old way of seeing Onesimus, a slave, someone beneath him, and put on the new – a brother. And whatever tensions used to keep you apart, maybe from the person next to you, or someone in this room, or someone else you’re thinking of, or maybe they still do. Christ is who holds all of us together now, the same way he held Paul and Onesimus together, and I’m reminded of those words from one of my favorite hymns, “The Church is One Foundation:”

Elect from every nation, yet one over all the earth, her charter of salvation, one Lord, one faith, one birth. One holy name she blesses, partakes one holy food, and to one hope she presses, with every grace endued.

Samuel Stone wrote those words in 1866, and he’s saying the same thing this whole sermon has been trying to say. One Lord we’re all being remade to look like, and one birth for every one of us. And this is why in a few moments we’re gonna share the same bread, and the same cup, the same meal for every one of us, and we’ll leave this table the same way we came to it, still growing into what we already are. Christ is all, and in all. Let’s pray.

Almighty God, we bow before you once again. We thank you for your word. We ask that you use your word in our lives. Give us your grace, by your Spirit, to put away, to put to death the things that are unlike you, the things that bring shame upon your name. Help us to rest in our Savior, knowing that we have been clothed in him. We pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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Rev. John Pennylegion – September 6, 2026

Good morning. If we haven’t met, my name is Penny, and I’m the senior pastor here, and it’s good to be with you. If you are a guest or a visitor, we’re glad that you would join us this morning. And we are continuing in our series in the book of Colossians, and so we’re in Colossians 3. And if you have a Bible, you can turn there. If you don’t have a Bible, there are Bibles in the chairs in front of you. You can find our passage located there. And if you came here this morning, and you don’t have a Bible, and you would like one, please just take that one. That is our gift to you. We would love for you to have that. We would love for you to have God’s word. So please take that.

But we are in Colossians 3, and we are now moving into the second half of Colossians. Colossians is a very short book, only four chapters. There’s only six more sermons left in our series, for those who might be counting. But we are moving towards the end, right? We’re in the homestretch. The end is near. And if you’ve been with us over the last number of weeks, then you will remember that Colossians is written to this church that’s struggling because there are these various ideas and teachings and false teachers that are infiltrating the church, and are trying to encourage the people of God to add to the gospel, to add to Jesus. We heard about last week how they were trying to add to Jesus through asceticism, and through mysticism, and through legalism. And specifically that legalism, right? The false teachers were encouraging the church to adopt the personal preference and personal convictions of the false teachers. And in the midst of that, we discussed how the only thing that binds us is God’s law, right? God’s word. Now that doesn’t mean it’s a free-for-all, remember. God gives us direction. He gives us direction with regard to the virtues we’re supposed to pursue and the vices we’re supposed to resist. In fact, the rest of chapter 3, after our passage, for the next two weeks, that’s what Paul is going to be talking about. He’s going to be talking about the ethical behaviors and ethical demands that God puts upon his people. But before Paul’s going to get there, before he’s going to talk about virtue, and before he’s going to talk about vice, this morning he’s going to remind us who we are. He’s going to remind us of our identity, who it is that we are in Christ. And so with that in mind, let’s read Colossians 3, beginning in verse 1. Paul writes,

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (ESV)

Friends, this is the word of the Lord. Let me pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have given us your word and that you have given us your spirit. And so we pray that you would use your spirit and your word to change us, to soften our hearts, to lead us in your truth, that you would remind us of what you have declared over us, and that we would trust in you. And so we pray that you would use this passage and you would use these next few minutes to make us more and more in the image of Christ. And we pray in his name. Amen.

Well, some of you know that I attended college in a small town in South Carolina called Greenwood, South Carolina. Not Greenville. Everyone’s heard of Greenville. Very few people have heard of Greenwood. Okay, so I went to school in Greenwood, South Carolina at a school called Lander University. And my baseball coach in college capitalized on that name, Lander. You see, coach would instill upon us that there was a particular way that he wanted us to play. It was the Lander way. This is what he described. This is what he imparted to us. And so that meant that we didn’t just run on and off the field. We sprinted. We ran out every single ball. We dove for balls in the hole. And the Lander way extended beyond the baseball field into the classroom. We had to say “yes, sir” and “no, sir,” “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am,” right? That was pretty new to this Canadian. But I adopted those ways because this was the Lander way.

Now, of course, being, you know, 18 to 21-year-old, 22-year-old college athletes, we oftentimes didn’t do things the Lander way. And when we failed to live up to this standard that coach had given to us, he would institute what he called “red nal’s.” A “red nal” is Lander spelled backwards. It is the antithesis of the Lander way. And so at the end of practice, coach would stand up on the hill that was down the right field line in foul territory. He would stand on the hill while we were at the bottom and he would go through all the red nals we had accumulated for the day. I remember I got one, at least. But I remember because I didn’t dive for a ball in practice, in foul territory, I got a red nal. And it wasn’t just me that got it for my infraction, but the entire team did.

You see, what was true of one became true of everyone. So one person accumulated a red nal and we all ran. But every once in a while, coach would stand up on the hill and he would go through all the red nals, you know, three, four, ten, you know, and he would tell us how many hills we were going to run. But every once in a while, he would say that there was something so unexpected, something so out of the ordinary, something so incredible that he was going to erase one of the red nals. That some player did something on the field or maybe off the field that coach got wind of that it was so out of the ordinary that he was going to remove one of those hills. And he didn’t just remove it for that one player, he removed it for all of us. As though we had all done that extraordinary thing. As though we had all done that beautiful thing. We all got credited for that one act.

Our Past Hiddenness

And that’s what Paul has been telling us again and again and again through Colossians. That God’s people, as we are united to Christ, what Christ has done has been credited to us. Right? We’ve heard in Colossians 1. We’ve heard in Colossians 2. We’re hearing it again in Colossians 3. That before Paul gets to the ethical demands of Colossians 3, he’s going to tell us again that we have been united to Christ. That what Christ has done has been credited to us. So much so that in verse 3 of our passage, Paul says that your life is hidden with Christ in God. That we are hidden. That Christ covers us so that his life becomes our life. Now, if you’ve been with us for the last number of weeks as we’ve been going through Colossians, you’ve heard this already. Right? You’ve heard this. And so maybe you’re thinking, I mean, three straight chapters, right? Colossians 1, Colossians 2, now Colossians 3. I mean, okay, Paul, we get it. We’re in Christ, right? Our life is his life. We’re hidden with him.We get it. The horse is dead. You can stop eating it, right? Maybe you’re wondering that.

Maybe you’re thinking that. Maybe you’re wondering, why does he keep bringing this up again and again and again? We only have four chapters. So why does he keep hitting this home? And that’s a fair question to ask. Like, why is Paul trying to instill in us this idea that what Christ has done has been credited to us? Well, I think there’s at least two reasons. The first reason is we often forget what’s true of us. It’s easy for us to hear truth spoken over us, but then we quickly forget it. It reminded me of when I was in seminary in my second semester, first year, sitting in Gospels class. And every external indicator would have said that that is exactly where I should have been. Church sent us. We had affirmation we should be there. Kat was on board moving our family across the country to a place we had never been. I had a scholarship that paid for my tuition. Everything said, “this is where I belong.” And I remember sitting in class thinking, “there’s no way I belong.” Sitting there thinking in this class, in the second row with a hundred students behind me, that they all knew what the professor had been talking about, that they had all heard it before, that these insights that were brand new to me, they all knew it. But me? Nope. And they knew I didn’t know it. That’s what I was thinking. Right? Imposter syndrome. Every external thing would have said that’s exactly where I was supposed to be. And yet, I kept forgetting. I forgot what was true. And it’s not just me that does this, right? We do it. We forget what is true. Intelligent people think that they’re dumb. Gifted people believe that they don’t have what it takes. The beautiful, they look in the mirror, and all they see is ugliness. We forget what’s true of us. And so, Paul knows that we’re prone to forget what’s true. And so, we need to be reminded again and again and again. So, that’s the first reason I think Paul is reminding us.

The second reason is because I already said, after our passage for the next couple weeks, we’re going to talk about the ethical demands of the gospel, of God’s kingdom. And it would be very easy for us to take those demands and turn them into a checklist. You know, like, “okay, critical words, check, didn’t do it.” You know, “stealing, nope, never done it.” Adultery, “nope, I’m good.” Some impure thought, “well, you know, maybe, you know, but I’ve checked off more than I didn’t. So, I must be standing pretty well before the Lord.” It’s easy for us to do that, isn’t it? To base our standing before the Lord on how we are doing ethically and how we’re meeting God’s demands. But y’all, that’s not true of us. Our standing before the Lord isn’t built on our behavior, on what we’ve done, in how good we’re keeping his commands. No, our standing before the Lord is based on what he has said about us, what is true about us, what our past is marked by.

And what our past is marked by, the truth that Paul is telling about us is that we are hidden with God, that we are hidden with Christ. That is our past. We see it in verse 3, “for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ.” In verse 1, “if then,” – that “if” – it’s not that unsurety, but instead it’s a way of assuming what is true since then, right? “If then, since then you have been raised with Christ,” you hear what Paul’s saying. You have died, you have been raised. These things have happened already to you. This is our past. That Christ’s death and resurrection is applied and credited to us so much so that we have died and we have been raised. We are hidden with Christ. This is so important for us to remember that if we are trusting in Christ, our lives are no longer marked by sin and rebellion and the ways that we look to the world. Now, that’s not you anymore.

Do you remember what Jesus said in John 15? He said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends. No longer do I call you servants, but I have called you friends.” Y’all, that’s who you are. That’s who you are. You are those for whom Christ died and rose again. You are the ones for whom Christ gave his life. You are the ones whom Jesus calls friend. You are hidden with him. That is what’s true of you.

Our Present Living

And because that’s true of you, because that is our past that has been marked by Christ’s death and resurrection, this has implications for our present living. That’s where Paul goes next. He says, “because you have been raised, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” He’s saying, turn from what’s below and seek what’s above. Now, we’re going to get into specifics again as the weeks go on, but for now, let’s look at what Paul is saying and what he isn’t saying. So, when he says turn from things below, he is not saying that we remove ourselves from the world. He’s not saying that we retreat, that we enter into this sort of like monastic existence. That’s not what he’s saying. He’s not saying that we make light of creation or we ignore our responsibilities in our careers or our homes or our communities because those are the things that are below. No, that’s not what he’s saying. And we know he’s not saying that because we know that the whole of the scriptures affirms our work and the joy we have in creation and the wonder that we experience in the world.

Now, when Paul talks about us turning from what’s below, he’s talking about the sin that has plagued the earth and the effects of sin. And we can be confident that that’s what he’s talking about because of the rest of chapter 3, but also because of the contrast he’s setting up. We turn from things of the Earth and we set our mind on things above. We seek the things that are above. Now, this doesn’t mean that we just go walking around kind of staring up into the sky, right? It made me think of that scene in Luke’s gospel at the end when the disciples are walking along the road to Emmaus. You remember this? And Jesus appears to them and he starts talking to them and their eyes are kind of covered. They don’t know who Jesus is. And he opens up the word and shows how all the gospel or all the Old Testament was pointing to Jesus. And then Jesus ascended into heaven. And the two disciples, what did they do? They just stand there staring up. It’s kind of a really funny scene if you think about it. If you’re like some, you know, you know, average Jewish Galilean walking along and there’s these two guys just staring like, “Is there,” you know, “a storm coming?” “Is something, did something just happen,” right? Like it makes sense why they’re standing there. But for us, it would be strange, wouldn’t it? It’d be kind of fun. Well, I think it’s funny. Y’all just go around looking up at the sky all the time. So, but anyway, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.

It’s not some sort of like gazing away as though we are ignoring the things of the world. No, you see, seeking things above and setting our mind on things above is considering and pondering and pursuing Christ’s supremacy and his reign over our lives. Now I say his reign over our lives because look at the end of verse 1, “seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” He is seated at the right hand of God and that means he is seated on the throne that Christ is the King. I love that that’s our name, that that’s our church’s name, Christ the King. But Christ the King isn’t just, you know, words on the sign out front. It’s not just words on the front of the bulletin. Christ the King is a reality that we live with, that he is the King over the universe, that he’s the King over this church, that he is the King over our lives. To set our mind on things above, to seek the things that are above is to pursue and to live under Christ’s Kingship. It’s to, it’s to live in light of the very thing that we ask in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

Our Future Hope

You see, we long for that, for Christ’s reign to be on Earth as it is in Heaven. We long for his reign to be over our lives as it is in heaven. As we turn from what’s below, our sin, and as we turn to what’s above Christ’s rule, we are living out our union with Christ under his reign. And this contrast that Paul’s setting up between turning from below and turning to what’s above, it’s actually super helpful in understanding how we live in the present with regard to our sin. So, this isn’t just theoretical for Paul, that we turn and then we turn, right, that we turn and then we seek, but it’s actually practical. Because many of us, when we think about living in the present moment and resisting the sin in our lives, we think about, we simply turn from sin. We look away from it. We resist temptation and we move into maybe this state of kind of neutrality. Now, of course, it’s important to turn away. Paul just said that, right? But he didn’t stop there. He said we stop, we look away, but then we fix our minds on Heaven. We don’t just not sin, but we fill our minds with Christ’s reign. We don’t speak critically, we fill our mouths with encouragement. We don’t just not lust, we affirm true beauty. We don’t just not hate, we pursue love. That is turning from below and seeking what’s above. That’s what’s living out what is true of us. That present living, birth out of a past truth, and it culminates in a future hope.

You see it in verse 4, “When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” You see, as we have been united to Christ in his death and resurrection, we are united to him in his coming, and we will experience his glory. I wonder, I wonder how much we think about his coming. I wonder how much we think about the day he will return. You know, as I was thinking about his coming, my mind went back to “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” and that scene with the beavers. So, if you haven’t read “the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, or seen the movie, the beavers, they’re real beavers. It’s not just their name, they’re beavers, and they’re magical creatures, right? So, they talk, and the beavers are having a tea with the four children, and they’re telling the children about a prophecy in Narnia, a prophecy regarding the four thrones of Cair Paravel, that great castle. And they say this, “when two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve sit on those four thrones, then it will be the end, not only of the White Witch’s reign, but of her life. The White Witch, the epitome of evil and wickedness, she will be no more.” And if you’ve seen the movie, the movie does this amazing job of showing the excitement of the beavers.  As they start talking, you can see their longing for this future hope, that they can’t wait for that day when the thrones will be filled, because it will mean that the White Witch, and wickedness, and evil will be no more, because Aslan, he will have come.

It’s this amazing anticipation, longing for, desiring, looking forward to the future with hope. And I wonder if we have that same longing. I wonder if we have that same desire, that we too are longing, and hoping, and looking for that day when Christ will return, and we will appear with him. Y’all, that is the promise of Colossians, that our future is tied to Christ, that when he returns, and he appears, and his glory comes, we also will appear with him. 1 John 3 says it this way, “we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” Can you imagine that? We will be like him. There is a day coming when we will be free from sin and pain. We will be free from sickness and sorrow, a day that is coming when we will have no need for hospital, or vaccine, or medicine. There won’t be sleepless nights of worry. No, there is a day coming when we, who are trusting in Christ, when we, who know what is true of us, will find our trueness culminating in his coming. One theologian put it this way, “we hope not only for the coming of the Lord, but for the full revelation of who we already are.” The trueness of who we are will find its culmination in Christ’s coming, and we will dwell with him. That is what we long for, that is what we hope for.

I wonder if we think about that, if we think about it enough, because y’all, that is the beautiful hope that awaits us. That is our beautiful future hope. Now maybe some of you are thinking, well it’s fine to think about that from time to time, but, but I don’t want to be so heavenly minded that I’d be of no earthly good. You’ve heard that phrase before. I have to tell you, I don’t care for it. I don’t like that phrase. I don’t like that phrase because the truth is, is that if we are heavenly minded, we will be of earthly good, because we will know the good that the world and that we long for and are in need of. The good of Christ’s reign in this world and over our lives. Friends, that is the good news. That is the good news, that what’s true of us, that we have died and risen with Christ, it will be fully revealed. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. And so friends, turn your gaze to what is above. Believe what God has said is true of you, and look to our sure and future hope. Amen. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we do thank you. Thank you that we do await a future hope when Christ will return, and he will appear, and we will appear with him in glory. We long for that day, and so we ask Lord Jesus, come quickly. Come quickly and make all things new, but until you come, we ask that you would help us to turn from what is below, to seek what is above, to believe what you have said is true of us, and to hope for that day of your return. We ask that you would work and move in us, and we pray all this in Christ’s name, and God’s people said together, Amen.

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John Pennylegion – August 30, 2026

It’s good to be with you. If you are a guest or a visitor, welcome. We’re glad that you would join us. And we recognize, I realize that if you are new to us, if this is your first Sunday, that walking into a place that is new to you, seeing people that you’ve never seen before, experiencing things that you’re maybe unsure of, can be kind of a daunting occasion. It can be difficult. It can be hard. It takes a bit of courage to walk into a new place. And we recognize that and know that. And so we hope that what you experience is the welcome of Christ, that you would experience the hospitality of his people, that you would know more of his grace and his kindness, because that is what you need and that’s what I need. And that’s what we’re all in need of. So whether this is your first Sunday or your 101st, you are welcome in this place. We’re glad that you would come and as we worship the Lord.

And this morning, we’re continuing in our series in the Book of Colossians. So if you have a Bible, you can turn to Colossians chapter 2. You can also find our passage in the Bibles in the chairs in front of you on page 984. But as we’ve been going through Colossians, you remember Paul is writing this letter to a church that he’s never been to. He’s never met them. This is a church he didn’t plant. He’s just gotten wind of what’s going on in their church through his friend Epaphras, who we believe was the person who planted this church. And so Paul’s heard through Epaphras that there are philosophies and ideas that are seeping into the church through these false teachers. And these philosophies and ideas are encouraging the people of God to add to Jesus, to move on from Christ. That yes, they embrace the gospel, they embrace the truth, but now these teachings, these false teachers, are encouraging them to move beyond Jesus, to mix things with him. And so Paul is writing to the Colossians and helping them to be rooted in the truth of who Jesus is, that he is all that they need. And Paul’s going to continue in that vein this morning, as he encourages them and us what it looks like for us to walk with Jesus, what walking with Christ, what life with Christ is like, how he is all that we need. And so let’s read Colossians, chapter 2, beginning in verse 16. Paul writes,

“Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”  (referring to things that all perish as they are used)— according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”

Friends, this is the Word of the Lord. Let me pray for us.

Heavenly Father, we ask that as we come to your Word that you would now help us, help us to see the beauty of Jesus, help us to know what it means to be his people, help us to understand your Word. For Father, apart from the work of your Spirit, your Word and your will would be darkened to us, and so we ask that you would illuminate it now, that you would minister to our hearts and our minds, and that you would lead us in your truth. We pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.

Now, like many of you, I have a number of cookbooks that line my kitchen, cookbooks that have specific purpose, right? Cookbooks that are all about baking, cookbooks that are about grilling, all sorts of different cookbooks, and they all have something in common, right? They have recipes, right? That’s what cookbooks have, right? Whether it’s Julia Child’s or, you know, America’s Test Kitchen or whoever it might be, they’re just filled with recipes. But there’s this one cookbook I have that actually is unlike the others because there are very few very few recipes in it. You see, this cookbook is talking about the science behind cooking, and specifically how four elements, salt, fat, acid, and heat, how those four elements contribute to the process of cooking, and how the use of these different elements in their proper ways can enhance flavor and turn something beautiful and good. And we understand that, right? We know that when we mix certain things together, it brings about something delicious, something wonderful.

We know this, even if we don’t know why, right? We may not understand how the mixing of these different elements, these different things, function and why they taste good, but we know that mixing certain things together are wonderful, right? Peanut butter and jelly, right? What a great mix, right? Whoever came up with that, like Nobel Prize, right? Tomato and basil, right? It’s glorious. It’s beautiful. It’s aromatic, right? Salt on almost everything, right? It’s just so good. But we also know that there are things that when we mix them together that they taste bad. We think they’re going to taste good, and we think, you know, on paper that this is going to be delicious, it’s going to be wonderful, but when we mix them together, it actually turns out to be a giant mess. I mean, case in point, Hawaiian pizza, right? Okay, okay, okay. That’s a disputable matter. But there are those things, right, that when we mix them together, we know that they’re just not good. That there are things that when we mix together, it’s beautiful, and things that when we mix them together, they’re gross. But then there are those things, a few things, not many, but there are just some, that they are so good and wonderful, we don’t have to add anything to them, right? That to add a sauce or a spice, it would actually take away, not enhance the goodness.

Adding to Jesus Through…

And that’s what Paul is telling us about Jesus in this passage. You see, the false teachers, the detractors from the gospel, they’re trying to add to Jesus. They’re trying to mix different things with the gospel, to mix their philosophies, and their teaching, and their ways with Jesus. And by adding these man-made elements to Christ, they’re not enhancing the gospel, they’re taking away from it. You see, Christ doesn’t need any adding to. Christ doesn’t need anything mixed to him. He is beautiful and good as he is. And these false teachers, they’re trying to mix with the gospel, mix with Jesus legalism, and mysticism, and asceticism. And so this morning, how we’re going to approach this passage, and what our sermon is going to entail, is that we’re going to look at these three mixes that they’re trying to combine with the gospel. We’re going to look at them briefly, and then address all three of them together.

Legalism

Okay, so that’s how we’re going to approach it. So, legalism is the first thing they try to mix with the gospel. We see it in verse 16. Paul says, “therefore,” Now, therefore, we go back to what we heard last week. We’ve received Jesus, we’ve been united to him, right? We have died to our sin, we have died with him, and risen to new life. “Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival, or a new moon, or a sabbath.” So, it’s pretty clear that what they are invoking are these Jewish practices that were related to food laws and to ceremonies. So, you know, if you’ve read the Old Testament, that there were laws that were given to God’s people about what they could and couldn’t consume, right? So, all the meat, all the blood had to be cooked out of it. So, no medium rare, right? No medium rare, only well done. And no lobster, no crab, no shrimp, right? Because these were shellfish. They weren’t allowed to consume these foods. But there were also ceremonies that they were supposed to participate in, and we see them. There were annual festivals that the people of God would go to, there were monthly occasions, that’s what the new moon was, and then there was the weekly sabbath. And so, whatever it is that the false teachers were promoting, they were telling the Colossians that they must adhere to these particular practices and in a particular way. Now, that emphasis is important. Particular practices in a particular way. So, hold on to that. We’re going to come back to that in a moment. So, that’s the first mixing that they’re trying to do, legalism.

Mysticism

The second is mysticism. We see this in verse 18: “Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by a sensuous mind.” So, what we see is that they are trying to encourage the Colossians to engage in this sort of mystical worship. It’s clear that this is what they’re trying to do because they’re disqualifying those people who don’t engage in this particular style. Now, we’re not exactly sure what worship of angels entailed. It could have been that they had idols, that they were creating statues, they were bowing down, they were worshiping them. But it also could mean, this Greek phrase, it could mean worshiping angels. So, not the worship of angels, but as angels worship. And so, they’re being encouraged to worship as angels do. And so, what this might be is that they were being encouraged to move beyond their physicality and have some sort of ethereal sort of spiritual experience. And that would actually fit with this idea of visions that they’re having. So, there’s this mysticism occurring in their worship. So, that’s the second mixing.

Asceticism

The final mixing that they’re adding to the gospel is asceticism. We see this in verses 20 and 21: “If we, if with Christ, you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.” Referring to things at all parishes, they are used according to human precepts and teachings. So, you see, the false teachers are talking about this ascetic behavior related to the various things they’re experiencing to renounce food and to renounce possessions. Now, just as an aside, every time I read this verse, “do not handle, do not taste, do not touch,” it takes me back to my days doing campus ministry.

You see, before Kat and I went to seminary, we were doing college ministry in Greenville, South Carolina. And so, Kat would oftentimes spend time with college girls and I would spend time with college guys doing Bible studies and engaging with them, doing all these sorts of things. And I remember invariably that there would be guys and they’re talking about their relationships, their girlfriends, and they would memorize this verse. We would encourage the memorization of verses of passages, to invoke during times of temptation. So, with their girlfriend, they would memorize, “do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.” And while I applaud them at wanting to have relational purity, that is not what this verse is talking about. There are other passages we could turn to. No, this passage is talking about renouncing of food, renouncing of possessions, renouncing even of relationships, right? This ascetic sort of posture towards the Christian faith.

So, these are the three things that are being encouraged to add to Jesus, to mix with the gospel. And so, what does Paul say about them? We’ll look at verse 23: “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body.” He acknowledges, y’all, these look wise. They sound right. And not just asceticism, but legalism, mysticism, they seem holy and good and righteous. I mean, after all, didn’t Jesus say that we are to deny ourselves and take up our cross to follow him and follow him, right? And Paul himself, in other letters, he talked about disciplining his body so that he could run the race and so that he could fight the battle. So, how is this different? How is this different from what Jesus was calling us to deny ourselves and what Paul was calling us to put our bodies into submission? Well, what’s different, as Paul says in verse 23, these are a self-made religion. In verse 18, this puffs up without reason the sensuous mind. That language of puff up, it means to inflate oneself. It’s getting at an arrogance, to be arrogant and to have no reason to be. With regard to legalism, he says in verse 16, he’s insinuating that there is a freedom regarding food and festivals. I say that there’s a freedom that’s insinuated because notice Paul, in verse 16, doesn’t condemn or speak negatively about food and drink, about ceremonies. He doesn’t speak negatively like he does those other mixings. No, instead what he says simply is, “let no one pass judgment on you.” And so what it seems like Paul is doing there is that he is encouraging freedom of practice.

In other words, this is a disputable matter. Someone who wants to abide by, say, food regulations, they’re allowed to. If they don’t want to, they too are allowed. The problem that Paul is addressing is this legalism that is imposing personal conviction as though they are biblical mandates. Do you hear that distinction? Personal conviction, not biblical mandate. And friends, this happens, right? Not just within the Colossian church, but this can happen with us. Let me give you two examples where this could play out. One personal and one corporate. So a personal example. Some of you know that I have alarms that go off on my phone throughout the day. Three times I get an alarm to remind me to pray. 9:00, 11:00, and 2:30. So 9:00, the alarm goes off. It reminds me to pray for my family. That’s what it says. Pray family. 11:00, pray for the church; I pray for y’all. 2:30, I pray for the world.

So I have these alarms that go off. Now, there is a biblical command to pray, right? It is right for us. I could, as your pastor, stand behind this pulpit and say, you should pray. God’s word tells you to pray. And you should tell one another, as brothers and sisters in the Lord, we should pray. That would be perfectly appropriate. But it would not be appropriate for me to say, “and you need to pray at 9.” So it would be wrong for me to say, “now we must pray,” right? It would be inappropriate because God’s word doesn’t say we have to pray at 9, we have to pray at 11, and we have to pray at 2:30. Now, it’s a good discipline. It has been super helpful for me. As someone who sometimes gets lost in my day, I don’t know if you experience that and forget to pray. It helps me come out of my moment and to remind myself I need to pray. So it’s a helpful practice. Maybe it would be helpful for you, but it would be wrong for me to say you must. That’s a personal example.

How about a corporate one? Every year, we have a service. Christmas Eve often does not fall on Sunday. So Christmas Eve is maybe what we would call a modern festival, okay? It doesn’t fall on Sunday. It doesn’t fall on the Lord’s Day. Often, sometimes it does. Now, we are called as God’s people to gather together on the Lord’s Day to worship. So we can have a Christmas Eve service. We can have a Good Friday service. We can have a Monday-Thursday service. We think it’s beneficial as the leadership. That’s why we do it. We could meet on a Wednesday night for an additional worship service if we wanted. It would help us celebrate the birth of Jesus. We think it’s a good thing. Absolutely. And I can’t mandate y’all’s participation because the Bible doesn’t mandate your participation. It’s a good thing. I think it’s a good thing. I think it’s a helpful practice, but it’s not biblically mandated. There is personal conviction, there is good opportunity, and there is what’s biblically required.

The false teachers are taking personal convictions, allowable practices, things that benefit, things related to food and drink and festivals and Sabbath and New Moons, and they are raising the practice of them to the level of divine order, biblical mandate, and the requirement for Christian living. And Paul’s saying, don’t let people judge you on personal conviction. Now listen, this doesn’t mean anything goes, okay? This doesn’t mean that everything now is related to preference or conviction. We still live under God’s law. We still live under God’s commands and his requirements. In fact, we’re going to hear Paul talk about that in chapter 3 of Colossians. And as we live under God’s law, there is freedom not to add to God’s law. So the false teachers, they’re trying to mix these things in, and Paul is telling us these mixes, these additions, they are self-made religion, they puff up, and they have no ability to produce holiness. That’s what he said in verse 23. Did you see that? “They are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.” They look like they’re spiritual, but they’re actually relinquishing of Jesus.

We see that in verse 19. They’re not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grow with growth that is from God. So he’s saying these things that they’re trying to mix in, some of them may have the appearance of wisdom, they may look good, they may look spiritual, but they are of no benefit. So if they don’t benefit us with regard to our relationship with Christ, why are they attractive? Not just for the Colossians, but for us. Like, why are we prone to embrace mixing things with Jesus? Well, I think it’s because we feel good about how spiritual we are, particularly in relation to how spiritual others aren’t. I mean, puffed up.  We’re arrogant, self-righteous, right? And we’re arrogant and self-righteous in comparison to others. It’s a way of us measuring our holiness against other people’s lack or apparent lack of holiness. N.T. Wright put it this way. He said, “what looks like discipline is really a subtle form of self-indulgence.”

Now, what’s interesting, whenever we start talking about passing judgment, disqualifying others, those sorts of things, promoting self-made religion, what’s interesting is that we only seem to do this regarding the things that we’re good at, right? Like, we don’t pass judgment on people who are more disciplined than we are, or who are more faithful than we are, or who are good at the things that we are, where we got, unless we try to twist it and turn it and go, well, they’re only that way because they’re a legalist. I mean, obviously. But even in that, we’re passing judgment, aren’t we? We’re twisting. Because at the end of the day, when we do these things, when we add to Jesus, when we mix things with him, it’s not really about Jesus at all. It’s about us. And y’all, that won’t bring life.

Food and drink, festival, new moon, Sabbath, Paul said they are a shadow. A shadow. I’ve never heard anyone talk about how beautiful a shadow is. We talk about the beauty of a tree, the size of the building, right? The beauty of that person, the thing, the one who is casting the shadow. We know that that’s what’s significant. The shadow, it moves. It goes away. It fades. And that’s what Paul’s saying, right? These things, they’re but a shadow. They’re a picture. They point to Christ, the substance. He is the substance.

Those things are just simply pointing to him. And not only that, but Jesus is our head. He is the one that we are nourished from, that we grow in, that we are strengthened as we are united to him, as we are connected to him. We see it in verse 20. Paul says, “if with Christ,” (that “if” isn’t in the sense of well maybe, it’s more in the sense of since) “[Since] with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations according to human precepts and teachings?” So you see what Paul’s saying? He’s saying because we’ve been united to Christ in his death and resurrection, that we have died to the attempts to find life through human regulations, that Christ now is our life. That we don’t have to return to those things. We don’t have to try to find life from the shadows. That we don’t have to try to find life from mixing things to Jesus. We don’t add anything to him. Not legalism, not mysticism, not asceticism. No. Instead, we simply hold fast to him, knowing that we don’t need anything but Jesus. That what we need isn’t the shadow. What we need is the substance. What we need is Jesus. What we need is Christ and Christ alone. And so friends, we need not mix. Jesus is so good and beautiful that nothing needs to be added to him. Amen. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we ask that as you, as we have come to your word, that you would impress this upon our hearts. That Father, that we would live in the midst of the gospel freedom you have given us. And that we would hold fast to Christ and Christ alone. That he would be our beauty, our hope. That he would be the one we have put our faith in. And so Father, help us to see where it is that we are trying to add to the gospel. And help us to free, be free from that. So that we would cling only to Christ. And it’s in his name that we pray. And God’s people said together, Amen.

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